


Rey's Moving Castle

by someonesbeenhere



Category: Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Howl's Moving Castle Fusion, Ben is Sophie, Calcifer Cameo, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Crossover, Curse Breaking, Curses, Demons, F/M, Fic Exchange, Force Dyad (Star Wars), Genderbending, Happily Ever After, Happy Ending, Heartbreak, Let's Go To The Movies Fic Exchange, Love at First Sight, Magic, Magic Light Sabers, Meet-Cute, Pregnancy, Rey is Howl, Reylo - Freeform, Snoke is The Witch of the Wastes, Star Wars/Howl's Moving Castle, Steampunk, True Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someonesbeenhere/pseuds/someonesbeenhere
Summary: When lonely tinkerer Ben Solo gets caught up in a bar fight, his unexpected rescuer is none other than the infamous witch, Rey of Jakku. He's only ever heard stories of her, some rather formidable, including one that claimed she had sold her soul to a demon.Even so, he's completely taken by her and her apparent attraction to him too draws the unwanted attention of the Wizard of the Wastes, Snoke, who wants Rey's demonic power for himself.Snoke curses Ben horribly, exchanging their outward appearance in order to get close to Rey and Ben finds himself venturing into the wicked Wastes in order to right the wrongs of witches and wizards.Written for the Let's Go To The Movies Reylo Fic Exchange.Prompt - Howl's Moving Castle for typewriter_in_galaxy
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 18
Kudos: 31
Collections: Let's Go to the Movies - Reylo Readers & Writers Prompt Exchange





	1. Very Little Time to Develop a Fondness.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [typewriter_in_galaxy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/typewriter_in_galaxy/gifts).



> Dear typewriter_in_galaxy,
> 
> Thank you for suggesting one of my favourite Ghibli movies as a prompt.  
> I'll admit that I picked your prompt because you only had one prompt suggestion and  
> I really wanted to fulfil it for you!  
> I was so excited to work on it and I had several ideas on what I wanted to do.  
> This was one of them and I'm glad I went with it.  
> I loved writing this version of Rey/Howl and I hope you love her too.  
> I hope more than anything, I have given you what you were looking for in the prompt  
> and that it makes you happy.  
> Thank you!
> 
> someonesbeenhere  
> xxx

* * *

Our story takes place in an intriguing time, neither in the future nor in the past. The story, much like the land where it takes place, is timeless. 

Had you, newcomer, suddenly found yourself in this place you could maybe end up in one of the two bustling, eclectic cities that reside here. Unfortunately for you, however, you’d more than likely land in the Jakku Wastes, a spance of rolling sand dunes and blistering heat, considering you definitely arrived by otherworldly means. The Wastes is the home of all things magical - both good and bad - and it separates these two, far more habitable, kingdoms.

If you were to head West, for example, you’d venture into the kingdom of Coruscant. A city of factories. Rows upon rows of the uncharacteristic grey buildings, tall chimneys pumping thick smog into the sky, covering the entire city in a dirty blanket of the stuff. Walking the streets of Coruscant; the polluting smoke is less noticeable. In fact, if you mentioned it to the citizens, they’d have no clue what you were talking about. They’d grown up in it, their parents and grandparents before them all living in the same black cloud. Entire generations lived and died working in Coruscant's factories. It was the nightlife that the witches and wizards of the Wastes came here for. At night, the kingdom lit up, cutting through the hazy fog. Twinkling lights of every colour imaginable lined the skyline, entire buildings from the palace down to the pubs were lit. Therein lay Coruscant’s beauty, however small and fleeting that beauty may be.

Heading East from the magic epicentre of the Wastes, you’d reach the more welcoming of the two cities, Chandrila. Established on a rolling mountainside descending down to the cerulean ocean waters, the city steps downwards, the King’s palace residing at the very highest point. The wealthier residents lived high up, looking out over the ocean. The higher your view of the fishing boats, the richer you were. However, in a kingdom as beautiful as this, being lower down in the city wasn’t exactly a downside. The poor citizens get to spend their days by the seaside, cool ocean air in the lungs and the freshest seafood the fisherman had to offer.

The city of Chandrila was truly the crown jewel of the realm.

A city lost in time, where the magic of the past meets the technology of the future. Where powerful sorcerers are the fixers of the monarchy. Where grey, brick cottages can be nestled amongst colourful, grandiose architecture. An oxymoronic city. There are more than likely more cities in this crazy world like it but no regular citizen would venture into the rolling hills of the Wastes to find them.

  
  


But it's by the sea in the city of Chandrila that reserved tinkerer Ben Solo calls home.

Ben Solo, son of well renowned pirate Han Solo and equally as renowned royal consort Leia Organa. Ben followed in neither of his parents’ footsteps, finding no joy in roguish smuggling or high brow meddling. He was a tinkerer, pure and simple, making a decent wage keeping the city’s technological aspects running smoothly. From speeders to datapads to mechanical droids, there wasn’t anything that Ben couldn’t fix. He’d even gone as far as beginning to create a few of his own. After his father’s untimely death, his mother moved into the palace, unable to be in the family home without her husband. So this was Ben’s home now and Ben’s alone, where he lived a lonesome life.

Ben wasn’t oblivious. He was aware of his decent good looks - he can thank his parents for that. He was tall and fairly broad, the latter mainly due to his manhandling of heavy equipment day by day. He had a strong jaw and proud features and despite growing up with his nose and ears a little too big for the rest of him, he’d adapted to them well. His dark eyes coordinated well with his dark hair, grown long to brush his shoulders and hide his aforementioned unflattering ears. Despite coming across as a large and sullen and sometimes rather intimidating man, Ben had demonstrated time and again his well-meaning nature. He did have an angry streak in him, it came out usually while he was hard at work but no one beyond his parents had known of that. He’d had the opportunity time and again to marry, settle down and have children. Beautiful women came into his shop often enough, most of the time with a job for him, other times just to watch him work. He could have his pick of them but he could barely stand his own monotonous existence, he wouldn’t drag some poor girl into it too.

Every day was the same. 

He’d wake up early, often before the sun had risen over the ocean outside his window. He’d take the opportunity to run through the town, oftentimes the only people he’d pass were the fishermen down at the docks. Sometimes he’d run into one of his father’s old smuggling cohorts but he made the extra effort to avoid them when necessary. When the rest of the town arose, he would frequent the market for his foods; hot bread was his treat of choice and the baker, Maz, would often keep the biggest loaf aside for him. She’d been trying to set him up with her daughter for years but he wasn’t interested. Even so, he would still accept the woman’s kindness for as long as she offered it to him.

In his shop, he would spend his days working on jobs for clients or his own projects. Between erasing the memory on Mr Krennic’s protocol droid for the umpteenth time to repairing Admiral Ackbar’s prize Rian-327 airspeeder yet again - Krennic’s ongoing affair with the housemaid and Ackbar’s wayward wannabe racer son were currently paying for the roof over Ben’s head, so he couldn’t complain - Ben worked on building items similar to these for himself. While he could never afford the high quality of droids and speeders that his clientele could, he was studying them almost constantly. He’d almost rebuilt some of the tech several times over so it wasn’t so different to rebuild the items themselves from scratch. Ackbar would surely be surprised at the replica of his speeder currently taking shape in the back of Ben’s workshop for a fraction of the cost. Ben tinkered and programmed each day until closing and it was deemed socially acceptable to drink the rest of the hours away at his local bar.

This was where he was heading now.

He mulled over the drink in his glass, the amber liquid swirling with sparkling gold. He’d long since believed that the drink was certainly a potion which although it wasn’t illegal was certainly frowned upon. Ben had never thought to complain however, it made him feel less solemn and he didn’t want to lose that.

The rising murmur in the bar behind him and the vicious looks thrown his way signalled his time to pack up and leave as it so often did. Despite his father being gone, this hadn’t undone all of the elder Solo’s misdemeanours over his roguish lifetime and sometimes the consequences of some of them caught up to his son. Often in the bar after a little inebriation, much like tonight. Ben had learned early on when to call it a night.

He nodded at Rex, the sympathetic bartender who seemed to be well aware of his threatening patron but being one of a few free wizards in the city, he wasn’t going to jeopardise that for some kid. Ben understood. He’d probably do the same thing.

Ben stepped outside feeling the fizzing magic humming pleasantly through his veins. He pulled his cloak tighter around him, the temperature having dropped significantly while he drank inside.

The streets were quiet, the bustling crowds of parties and gatherings contained peacefully inside the drinking establishments. All Ben could hear was his ragged breath and the thudding of his footsteps so the sound of several more sets of footsteps thudding along close behind him made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

He sped up a little, taking steps two at a time and his breath coming in quicker pants. This did not go unnoticed. The group behind him started suddenly running for him and Ben took off in a sprint.

He ducked and weaved through the cobbled streets, the following footsteps hot behind him. He was almost home‒just zip through the alley and he’d be gone. He slipped into the darkness, quietly retreating into the silence seeing his pursuers rush by the mouth of the alleyway. Ben breathed a sigh, turning slowly to complete his journey home, only to be grabbed by the scruff of his cloak.

“Gotcha, ya cowardly little shit,” the grabber sneered into Ben’s face. Ben recognised him as one of the most antagonistic looking bar patrons. He was flanked by his out-of-breath cohorts shortly after. “Like father, like son, eh?”

Around him, his cronies chuckled darkly.

“My father’s been dead for years. Whatever he stole from you, whoever he slept with, whatever he lied about, surely you realise there’s nothing I can do for you now?” Ben groaned.

“We can beat the crap out of you and leave you bleeding in the gutter,” a sidekick hissed, the rest of them all humming in agreement.

“That’d certainly make me feel better,” the one holding Ben said. He raised a meaty fist, pulling it back to strike. Ben squeezed his eyes shut, preparing himself for the blow.

But it never came.

Ben risked a look, the surprise on his face matched his attacker’s as the man’s balled fist was held frozen by his head. The rest of the attack group seemed just as baffled.

“Five men against one? Hardly seems fair.”

The sweet lilting voice was the last thing Ben had expected to hear while being beaten in a dark alley but he definitely welcomed the intrusion. He craned his neck, his eyes attempting to adjust to the darkness, looking for the source of the voice.

“Tell you what,” the voice said. “How about we make this even? The five of you against me.”

Ben heard rather than saw the smirk in her voice.

“Get out of here lady,” the frozen brute snapped. “This don’t concern you.”

Delicate footsteps started towards them, echoing lightly in the stone alley.

"You're right, of course, but I find that I would like to insert myself into the situation."

As she stepped closer, Ben could see a glint of moonlight hitting her chestnut hair, her attractive features pulled into a wicked smile as she watched the lot of them. He looked between the girl and the brute holding him, watching the man's face flit between confusion and annoyance.

“Get rid of her!” he snapped at his goons and they stumbled forward, all of them slightly unsure what they would do once they apprehended her.

She didn’t move. Instead, she smiled and waved a hand at the oncoming barrage and before his eyes, Ben watched the barreling men transform to fluffy, harmless kittens. Ben chuffed a laugh as the furry creatures curled up and purred against the girl’s ankles. She bent to pick one up, the little thing curling up against her cheek affectionately and she chuckled.

“I think I like them better this way, don’t you?” she remarked, her wicked eyes glinting at the only other humans left in the alleyway with her. Ben had to hold himself back from agreeing with her. 

The brute, now unfrozen, shoved Ben away, his fury now directed directly at the girl. In any other circumstances, Ben would be worried for her, maybe even attempt to defend her but by the looks of things, the girl was a witch and Ben was her damsel in distress.

“Who the hell do you think you are!?” the brute yelled.

“Who do you think I am?” she asks calmly, a playful lilt in her voice.

“You’re a goddamn witch!” he spat. “Fucking bitch, you need put back on your leash.”

With a quick flick of her wrist, the man slammed into the wall, his body held a foot off the ground and several feet above her as she approached, her expression turned thunderous. The man had frozen again, whether she had done it to him or it was out of his own fear, Ben had no idea.

He was also very aware that he was now free to go but for some reason, he felt he should stick around, see the outcome.

The beautiful girl - now that she basked in the full view of the moon, Ben could see that she really was beautiful - stepped right up to her prey; they’d be nose to nose had she not been pinning him off his feet.

“You know I’m a witch and yet you dare to spit insults at me? How foolish can one man be?” Her voice was darker now, laced with quiet ferocity.

“You’re just a pet of the King, you can’t hurt me,” he attempted to mock her and while he didn’t see it, Ben saw the rage build inside her, the magic bristling on her fingertips inside clenched fists. She was going to hit him with a spell, the outcome of which could be anything at all.

She waved her hand and the hulking frame of the man disappeared into nothing, nothing but a small squeaking shadow of a mouse scuttling over the cobblestones. She crouched down in front of the creature and it squeaked up at her. It was very clear that while the asshole’s meaty body had vanished, his hot-headed attitude had not.

“You’re lucky that’s all I did to you,” she muttered, her tone the epitome of mock innocence. “I don’t work for your King. Cross me again and next time I won’t hold back.”

The tiny creature scampered away into the night and she turned to watch it go. It disappeared from view and she turned back to look at Ben who had only been able to watch on in bewilderment.

“Will-” Ben croaked out. He coughed to clear his throat, much to his companion’s amusement. “Will he stay like that?” He asked, nodding his head towards where she’d captured his attacker.

“The mouse? No, only until morning - Unless his buddies snack on him before then,” she said with a smirk and a wink.

Ben chuffed a nervous laugh. Was that the correct response? To laugh? He had no idea but he definitely knew that he didn’t want to upset her. She seemed to notice his nervousness and her smile softened.

“Can I escort you home?” she asks politely, her sweet tone far different to what he’d heard from her so far.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to,” Ben babbled in response and she grinned.

“I know I don’t _have_ to,” she says moving closer to him. Ben takes a half step backwards instinctively. “But I would like to.”

If Ben was being honest, yes, he was a little afraid of her but there was something about the warm way she looked at him that made him want to give into her. Give her anything she requested.

“I-uh… sure,” he stammered. It was clearly an unsure answer but she smiled at it nonetheless. “I’m this way,” he juts his head towards the opposite end of the alley, half turning to move that way before a small hand reaches out to grab his. Turning back, his eyes meet hers, her fingers burning into his hand that absentmindedly closes around them. Her eyes sparkled excitedly.

“I have a better idea,” she steps closer and gestures to his body. “May I?”

He can only nod timidly.

She lifts his arm, ducking under it and wrapping it around her shoulders, never letting go of his hand. Her slender arm wraps around his torso, tucking herself into his body. Surely she can feel his heart thudding inside his chest.

“You’re gonna wanna hold on tight,” she tells him with a smile and he does as he’s told. He pulls her tight to him and the floral scent of her hair tingled in his nose. He’s sure he feels her press closer into him and he finds he really doesn’t mind it.

With a powerful push, she leaps upwards, her feet leaving the ground entirely and taking Ben with her. He gasps, clinging onto her tighter as they rise higher, out of the alleyway and over the rooftops. Ben scrambles to hold onto her tighter, certain he’s going to fall if he slackens his hold on her even a little. He can feel her giggle against his body.

“Which direction?” she asks calmly.

Ben intends to point the way but he is reluctant to let go of her, she chuckles again and pulls back from him, his eyes widening in fear at her release of him. Until he notices that he’s not falling.

She takes both his hands and hovers in front him, Ben weightlessly held in midair with her. He puffs a small laugh of amazement and looks at her, her reassuring smile calming him.

“Okay?”

He nods and looks around, trying to get his bearing on the city streets below him. He nods towards his shop and she begins to move, her feet making the same movements they would as if pounding along the pavement but instead they propelled her through the air.

“Just walk,” she tells him. “You’ll get where you want to go.”

He follows her lead even though it was utterly absurd that his weightless footsteps were actually carrying him forward. When they approach his house, she pulls him closer again, taking him downwards until their feet touch back down onto the solid street. 

Ben felt suddenly heavy, like every step was more difficult to take. He didn’t know if that was due to his loss of weightlessness or his growing reluctance to part from the stunning witch. Had she somehow gotten more beautiful in their short acquaintance? He hovered by his door, gaze roaming over her features, trying his damndest to commit them to memory because he had no doubt that he’d never see her again after tonight.

Her high cheekbones, tan skin. Her slender nose, arched eyebrows. Her lithe but lean frame. Her lips parting into a bright smile as mischievous hazel eyes bore into him while he looked over her.

“That was,” Ben started hesitantly. “Exhilarating … and terrifying.” Rey chuckled lightly, the sound wonderful in Ben’s ears.

“You were a natural,” she tells him.

“I’m sure you say that to all the hapless men you rescue,” he counters, attempting to mimic her friendly, playful tone.

“Certainly not,” she scoffed. “I prefer to evoke fear in men rather than gratitude,” she tells him truthfully. “Although, I am warming to it, that could just be you though.”

If Ben were chatting to a sweet girl he’d met down by the ocean or even Maz’s daughter, he would have been sure that he was being flirted with. However, this seemed highly unbelievable coming from the stunning witch that he was actually talking to. Still, he blushed all the same and she smiled at the colouring of his cheeks.

“Thank you,” was all he could seem to muster. “For tonight.”

“Believe me, it was my pleasure,” she answered. When it was clear that Ben couldn’t find any more words, she gave him a courteous nod and turned to leave him.

“Wait!” Ben called and she stopped instantly. Her bronze hair toppled over her shoulder as she turned back to him. “I didn’t get your name.”

“I didn’t get yours either,” she counters, her face wide with a stunning grin.

“Ben. It’s uh, Ben,” he garbled hurriedly. Her eyes lit up.

“Well Ben, I’m Rey.”

She gave him a devastating smile and in a flash, she was gone.

*****

Throughout the following day, Ben yawned incessantly. He didn’t get much sleep that night. He just lay there, staring at the ceiling, his thoughts consuming him. Thoughts of _her_. How gorgeous she was, her shimmering white cape draped over her petite shoulders, her expression mischievous as she played her wicked tricks. Her tanned midriff just visible in her cropped shirt. He was sure that midriff would haunt him for the rest of his days.

His stunning saviour, dressed in white. An angel sent to shake up his world. To make him question everything. Despite telling himself over and over that he would not linger on thoughts of her, he could not control himself.

She was no angel, that was Rey of Jakku.

Rey, the formidable witch who refused to bow to any King. Who roamed the Wastes in her enchanted moving castle, coming and going when she pleased. People said she was part demon, that's why the King was so afraid of her. Why he couldn’t force her into his servitude. That she consumed the hearts of men to sustain herself because she doesn’t have one. That she was selfish and wicked and took whatever she wanted from people, killing them if she had to.

If that really was her, Ben found all of this hard to believe.

And if all the stories were true, why did she help him for nothing in return?

All-day, his mind reeled, his thoughts tumbling over themselves. So much so that he barely noticed that the sunlight had dimmed and it was closing time. He began to close down the shop, wisely deciding not to visit the pub tonight.

And then the bell on the shop door chimed someone’s arrival.

“Sorry, we’re closed...” he voice dropped off when he turned to see who stood in his doorway.

The slow-moving figure paid him no mind and wandered further into the closed store, his disapproving eyes roaming around the place, surveying it before turning to look at Ben. The man’s eyes scrutinised Ben up and down and Ben took a moment to fully look at his intruder.

The man was certainly old, his liver-spotted skin loose and leathery. His face deformed on his left side and a horrifying scar cutting through the skin on his forehead. He was a myriad of scars and wounds and deformities that all together made up a pretty terrifying persona. Ben couldn’t even find the words to start a sentence yet the man continued to move around his little shop inquisitively.

While Ben wasn’t sure entirely of the man’s identity, the golden robes he cloaked himself in gave him away as a wizard. A very dangerous one if his scars and battle wounds were anything to go by and despite his hunched stance and his limping walk, the man’s mere presence in Ben’s humble, little shop was something to be feared.

Especially with the contemptuous way he was looking at Ben now.

“Remarkable,” the man said finally, his voice gravelly like rocks grinding inside a speeder exhaust.

“Pardon me?”

“It’s remarkable really,” the hoarse wizard continued, his tiny pale blue eyes examining Ben’s features. “You’re handsome enough I suppose, a little too angular in places maybe and surely not handsome enough to tempt _her._ And don’t get me started on this pokey little shop.”

Ben tightened his fists in rage, his knuckles turning white under the pressure, his lips pressed into a furious line.

“Is there something I can help you with?” he bit out. The man’s deformed face attempted a smirk at the aggravated reaction he was eliciting in Ben.

“I’ll get to my point, shall I? It’s been brought to my attention that you, young man, caught the eye of a certain witch last night. She seemed rather fond of you?”

Ben’s eyes widened, he knew that they had. The old wizard had noticed too so there was no way to convincingly deny it now even though something told him that it was in his best interests.

“I see you are familiar with the witch I refer to,” the wizard added.

“I met her in a brief interaction, there was very little time to develop a fondness of any sort.”

“Maybe,” the wizard remarked. “But you’ve grown fond of her haven’t you?” He smirked directly into Ben’s face and Ben found that he probably couldn’t deny it even if he had tried. “No matter, the two of you were seen bounding over rooftops together. Rey doesn’t share her magic with anyone so while you might not believe she had developed a fondness, it seems I know her better than you.”

Ben thought that he should probably refute the man’s statement but he had to admit, it made his heart quicken to think that someone like Rey could feel _anything_ for someone as mundane as him. Besides, he feared that he was about to pay dearly for the girl’s supposed affection.

“Unfortunately for you, young tinkerer, it’s that fondness that I wish to exploit,” the man told him and he rushed forward, grabbing Ben’s face tightly between his hands. “I would say it isn’t personal but that's entirely untrue,” the man breathed into Ben’s face, his breath reeking of death and decay. “This will only hurt a little.”

His own scream was the last thing that Ben heard that night before succumbing to the pain that raked through his body.

*****

The meadow was green, the greenest thing Ben could recall ever seeing. His fingertips brushed through the long strands of grass and over the heads of blooming flowers, the scent of them being whipped up into his nose by the warm breeze. The cottage over the open meadow stood out, white walls and thatched roof contrasting against the plush greenery and tumultuous river that flowed behind it. The pale smoke billowing from the chimney stack and the cottage’s water wheel that turned with the power of the river were the only things telling him that this wasn’t some idyllic landscape painting.

“Ben!”

His heart fluttered at the sound.

He turned, pushing his hair back from his face and squinting into the light. The brightness of the setting sun would have blinded his curiosity over who called his name had she not stepped up to him. The orange light caught in the shining bronze of her hair as she stepped into his arms for an embrace. Ben’s arms closed automatically around her, the familiar curve of her slightly swollen stomach pressing into his torso.

She pulled back, her hazel eyes looking up at him and her lips pulled into a wide smile.

“I love you,” she whispered, leaning up against him on her toes to press the sweetest kiss against his lips.

He didn’t respond with his own declaration of love but he could not deny the overwhelming feeling of it blooming in his chest for the woman in his arms. For the two of them.

*****

The swinging of the shop door and the chiming of its accompanying bell woke Ben with a start. He looked up at the open shop door and groaned, partly at the possibility of being robbed while he was passed out on the floor but also at the pain that permeated his body. From his head to deep in his bones, everything ached. He blinked into the dim light, he couldn’t seem to get his eyes to focus.

He huffed and cursed as he tried to manoeuvre himself off the stone floor, all his joints creaking and cracking as he did, grinding together like sandpaper as he moved. Once on his feet, abnormally unsteady, he stumbled and limped towards the door, closing it over and locking it. Whatever hellish hangover he was currently fighting, he was not willing to deal with customers on top of it.

Although, he didn’t go to the pub last night did he?

He was sure he hadn’t. What _had_ happened last night?

He … closed up the shop as normal. No, wait, he didn’t. The front door wide to the wall was evidence enough of that. He was going to when … that wizard showed up! The old one. What had he been saying? It was about Rey. How she had grown attached to Ben? No, that didn’t seem right. Did it?

God, his brain hurt. Ben clutched his head, the act making him notice something that hadn’t reached his attention yet. He looked down at his hands, his meaty, mildly scarred fingers and thumbs had been replaced with thin, boney, liver-spotted ones. Panic rose up in him and he pushed through the resulting pain to rush to the mirror in his backroom. It only confirmed his fears.

Looking back at him was the old, deformed, scarred wizard from last night. He copied Ben’s every move, down to the horrified expression in his eyes. The wrinkled hands roamed over his leathery face, fingers roaming over the horrid scars. His panicked breath puffed from his tight chest, his boney ribs expanding with the action.

Ben gripped his new face in horror and a rage he hadn’t felt in years rose up within him. He ripped the mirror from the wall and tossed it across the room, shattering it into hundreds of pieces.

Everything came rushing back to him.

The wizard’s visit. His thinly veiled threats. His contempt for Rey. The pain that accompanied the theft of his appearance. All of it, to get to Rey? Ben had been so caught up in his own predicament that he hadn’t thought about the purpose behind it. He wondered if she was alright. If the wizard’s evil plot, whatever it may be, had been set into motion yet?

Ben clutched at his frail body, his back and legs aching, his bones pressing against his skin, protruding unsightly against the flesh. If such a plot could be thwarted, would Ben even be any use now?

Ben Solo. Strong, large and handsome, was gone now. He had no idea how he would or even if he could turn back to himself. One thing he knew for sure now was that no one would love him like this.

Especially not the beautiful, formidable, mischievous, wicked, kind witch Rey.

*********

The creaking and groaning in his bones didn’t ease with time. If anything, Ben found his body becoming stiffer and weaker, slowly decaying more and more while there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

His morning runs had ceased, he could barely carry himself up and down the staircase in his home, never mind around the town with haste. Maz, no longer recognising him, had shooed the grotesque old man that hung around her stall several times saying he was frightening her customers. His work had slowed down massively, his eyesight not as keen as it was before, his fingers not as nimble and his muscles unable to carry his parts and equipment. Fewer and fewer customers were coming to his door now and Ben worried that soon his only visitor would be the bank wanting to take his home from him.

The bar fights had stopped at least. He no longer resembled his dashing father so he was able to go unnoticed by those he’d wronged. Although, the fearful glances and disgusted whispers behind his back weren’t much better.

He hobbled home, the sea breeze cutting through him into his frail bones, shuddering inside his cloak. He cut through the alleyway, the same one where he’d encountered the beautiful Rey, trying to relive the moment. Relive the way she’d looked up at him with a sparkle in her eyes, knowing he’d never get that look from her again now.

Pushing through his shop door, the tiny bell clanging above him, Ben surveyed the scene. It really was a dingy little store, at least he finally suited it now. He shuffled over the threshold, scuffing over paper under his boot and he risked what was left of his back to bend over and pick it up.

The bold red ink emblazoned across it was familiar to him now. More demands for money he simply did not have and had no idea how to procure. He tossed it onto his workbench with all the others, the threatening pile of parchment getting taller with each passing day. He couldn’t continue like this. Soon, he’d be out on the streets. Old, decrepit and dying in the gutter at only 30 years of age. What a pitiful story but an intriguing headline. Ben chuckled darkly. He could just see the papers now.

**30-Year-Old Tinkerer Dies of Old Age!**

**Benjamin Solo, aged 30, was the son of cavalier rogue Han Solo and royal consort Leia Organa. A handsome bachelor, though considered too angular by some, was cursed for falling for the beautiful witch, Rey of Jakku.**

**He passed alone and near-forgotten, his appearance deformed and that of an old man.**

**As he had no wife nor any children, he is remembered by his pokey, little shop, which has since been claimed by the banks.**

**His shop's knickknacks will be auctioned off first thing Sunday.**

They probably wouldn’t get much for his belongings, it was all useless anyway.

As he did often in recent days, his mind drifted back to Rey. Was the wizard out there somewhere, with Ben’s face, taking the gorgeous witch into Ben’s arms, kissing her with Ben’s lips? Was she looking back at the imposter with that sparkling look that he remembered, that mischievous smirk playing on her lips, holding him as tightly as she had that night?

He couldn’t bear to think of it.

He may be old and decaying but he still had his morals. Could he let her be tricked by a phoney version of him? Let her fall into his arms and become prey to whatever his ulterior motive may be? Surely not. Surely, if his time were fast approaching, the last thing he could do would be to spend his time saving the witch? Repaying her kindness?

He looked around him again, the empty shop, the dusty tools, the vicious banknotes. There was nothing left for him here now and soon it would be taken from him entirely.

At once, he’d made up his mind. He packed a few of his personal belongings, some of his tools, an old photo of his parents when they were his age, his grandfather’s old pocket watch and some bread and cheese. He threw a second cloak over his shoulders and gave the shop one last glance before closing up the shop forever.


	2. They're Called Curses for a Reason.

He hadn’t risked taking the partially built Rian speeder; its sleek silver body would have made him live bait in the blazing sunshine of the Wastes. He would have been seen miles away, been a target for thieves and scavengers alike. However, his second choice of transportation hadn’t been the greatest idea either. The chugging, rust-covered speeder barely came to life when Ben had tried to start it and it burst alive with such a loud shudder and groan that he was certain he’d woken the neighbours. Nonetheless, he’d managed to leave the city without incident and was now barrelling across the sandy dunes of the Wastes just as the sun began to rise over the horizon.

He could already feel the air getting hotter, the cold desert wind of nighttime giving way to the smouldering heat of the day. He’d have to stop when the sun rose too high, take shelter in a shady cave somewhere. Although, now that he looked around, something of that description seemed extremely rare to come by. All that surrounded him was more orange sand, blown into waves by the desert winds and the rusting remnants of warships long forgotten. Massive engine parts and ship wings, crashed and mounted like statues maring the barren desert. Ben recognised them from the history books he’d read in school. These were enemy ships, sent to scour the Wastes for survivors after the cities had been bombed and then left abandoned like giant gravestones.

Surely one of them could shelter him from the midday heat. More so, shelter the piece of junk speeder underneath him that was getting hotter and hotter by the minute. He’d have to shelter it in order to stop it from combusting entirely.

When the desert sun reached its peak, Ben realised that he’d made a terrible commitment. Leaving behind the last Star Destroyer crash site an hour or two ago, he was now out in open dunes under the blistering midday sun with no shelter in sight. If the heat against skin, trapped by his layers of cloaks, wasn’t distressing enough, Ben was starting to smell the familiar burning that came with an old engine overheating. He knew from past experience that when the speeder started to smell like melting steel, that its demise was imminent.

Still, knowing what he did, the speeder’s sudden breakdown caught him off guard and when it came to a sudden stop, it sent him flying off the front of it, his brittle bones only mildly cushioned by the sand. Groaning, he clambered to his feet with as much haste as his body would allow, the burning from the sand starting to seep through his clothing. He squinted into the light, the smoking speeder hissing about 15 feet behind him. The tools in his satchel would do him no good. The engine needed to cool down and the clear sky showed no signs of sunlight letting up anytime soon. He couldn’t just stay here. He had to continue on foot. He was suddenly thankful for fleeing in his leather boots, having no doubt that had he worn anything less sturdy, his feet would certainly have burned.

He pressed on for who knows how long, his cloak pulled tight around him, using it to shield his frail skin from the cutting sand whipped up by the wind. He just had to keep going until the next corpse of a war machine or until the desert eventually killed him. He’d been walking for so long with only the howling winds for company that as soon as a different sound broke through the monotony, his attention was immediately caught. A metallic groaning sound, accompanied by the puffing of steam and the thunking of something large and heavy pounding it’s way towards him in the sand. He whipped around, looking for the source, desperately hoping that one of those horrific machines hadn’t pulled itself from its desert grave to end him once and for all.

From behind the sand dunes, it rose up, shading Ben in it’s cooling shadow, it’s distorted metal face bearing down at him as it continued to press forward and step over him. He knew of it from stories but had never been witness to it in real life before.

It was Rey’s castle.

Enchanted and ever-moving, it moved across the Jakku Wastes without incident, its own legendary entity. It moved over him, shielding him from the heat and pressed on, surely with its own places to go but as it moved on, Ben noted the simple wooden door that hung down behind it as it walked away from him. He didn’t even think about his decision. He pushed his weary limbs as hard as he could and chased down the magical castle. His boots slipped in the sand as he pushed for the door, his boney old hands grasping desperately for the railings on either side of it. If he could just get a grip of the rails, he could pull himself up. Maybe. He panted, the tightness in his lungs growing more painful.

“Please,” he begged no one in particular, his voice hoarse as if his throat was full of sand. But it was like the castle heard his plea. The metal monstrosity slowed and the tiny porch that held the castle’s entrance swooped down and scooped Ben up onto it. He grabbed for the rusty doorknob and it turned causing Ben to tumble forward through the doorway.

He landed in a groaning heap on the castle’s inside steps, the door to the Wastes slamming shut behind him. His vision was so sun bleached that once inside, he only saw darkness. He strained his eyes, peering into the room, looking to see if anyone had noticed his chaotic arrival. No one immediately made their presence known and Ben warily made his way up the steps, taking extra care to keep quiet. He still couldn’t see a damn thing, except the tiny glow of a dying fire in the ash filled fireplace. He moved slowly towards it, listening out for any other sounds of life other than the groaning of the moving castle around him.

He reached for the tiny flame wrapped around the final wood log in the fireplace and used it as a torch to enlighten him to the rest of his surroundings. A dirty kitchen area, a lonely couch, dusty floors. Not a very regal castle. Then again, it wasn’t a Queen that resided here, it was a witch.

“Looking for something in particular, old-timer?” a voice asked.

Ben jumped, spinning around and swinging the torch looking for the source. It was only when he looked at his outstretched arm that he saw the glowing face in the flames and it was looking right at him. Ben yelled, throwing the smirking torch back into the stone hearth.

“Hey, watch it! You could have killed me!” It yelled, it’s flaming body bursting up in rage. Ben looked at it in shock, his heart still thudding loudly in his chest from the surprise.

“I could have killed _you_?” He asked befuddled.

“As easily as dousing a fire,” it replied. They watched each other for a moment. “I wouldn’t try it though, I’m still a fire demon.” 

“A demon? You don’t look like a demon,” Ben pondered aloud. The fire’s expression turned angry and it grew large again, sprouting waving arms that ended in clawed hands. Ben shrunk back from the thing making it grin. It’s smile grew wide, it’s mouth full of sharp fangs. It loomed over Ben, his flaming body lighting up the entire room.

“Are you going to kill me?” Ben asked quietly. The fiery monster shrunk back down to perch on its log and chuckled.

“Why would I kill you? I let you into my castle after all,” it said.

“You did?”

“You begged me to and I know a desperate plea when I hear it,” it says.

“You said ‘your castle’? Is this not the witch Rey’s moving castle? I can’t imagine there’s more than one of them,” Ben asked. The fire scoffed.

“Yeah, like Rey could move this castle. She’d be nothing without me,” it replied.

“You’re the demon she sold her soul to aren’t you?”

“Something like that.”

Ben looked down at the tiny flame, his burning body clinging to what was left its log, the burnt ash falling under it. He walked to a loose stack of logs that were bundled on the floor below the hearth, he picked one up and placed it in front of the fire. The flame looked at Ben in surprise.

“Thank you,” it said and gathered the wood up under itself and it let it burn under him.

“Sorry if I insulted you,” Ben told it, pulling up a rickety wooden chair to sit in front of the stone fireplace.

“Sorry I called you old-timer,” the fire replied. Ben shrugged.

“It’s true.”

“It’s not though is it?” The flame said, eyeing Ben intriguingly.

“What?”

“Yeah, pretty nasty curse you’ve got there,” the inquisitive fire continues. “Let me guess, you’re actually a young man, probably fairly handsome too. No one who looks like that would want to steal your appearance otherwise.”

“I. uh…,” Ben tried. He wanted to tell the demon how correct he was. How his brief dalliance with his witch friend has caused all this. That his appearance theft could possibly spell danger for her. But no words came. His mind created them and they died on his tongue.

“Don’t bother. The curse won’t let you talk about it. A curse would be pretty useless if you could,” the fire told him. Ben sighed, his shoulders slumped. Well, there goes his big plan.

“How do I break it?” Ben asks.

“It’s not like in the stories. True love’s kiss and all that,” he says. “More often than not, curses are never broken. They’re called curses for a reason.” One blow after another. How was he going to help Rey if he couldn’t tell her a damn thing about it? “Unless you can get the original witch or wizard to remove the curse, you’re stuck I’m afraid.”

“Brilliant,” Ben huffed, slumping back in the chair. His venture into the Wastes was fruitless indeed. His decrepit body was going to finish him and poor Rey would remain none the wiser that she was being pursued by a monster with Ben’s face.

Maybe he’d thought of her one too many times or he’d been talking with her demonic fireplace longer than he’d planned but the wooden door swung open and the witch herself swept in. Ben realised quickly that his memory of her hadn’t been clouded in a lovesick haze. That his memory of her was accurate and truthful and she was indeed as beautiful as he remembered. More so even. She drifted in, her white clothing, her shimmering, iridescent cape flowing from her shoulders and dusting the floor. Truly a vision from Ben’s wildest fantasies. A stark contrast with the dingy castle interior and Ben briefly wondered how the two could even be associated. 

His chest felt heavy like he needed a deep breath but when he tried to take one it was as if his heart had swollen and filled the space. Why did she seem to have this childlike tongue-tied effect on him?

She stopped when she saw him sitting there, surprise clearing displayed on her pretty features. Her hazel eyes flitted between the old man sitting at her hearth and the ball of fire that resided within it. A fire that looked curiously between the two of them as Ben stared at her in awe and Rey’s expression changed from surprise to amusement with the accompanying smirk.

The mild recognition in her eyes was not lost on Calcifer and he suddenly felt like he had missed something. Something important.

“Who’s your friend Calcifer?” she asked, removing her cape, her shoulders just as tanned as the rest of her with a sprinkling of dark freckles.

“I’m allowed friends? Who knew,” Calcifer snarked. Rey shot him a quick, annoyed look before turning her bright smile back on for Ben.

“Calcifer here would have you believe that I keep him prisoner here and that’s just not the case,” she draped her cape over another chair, one that did not match with Ben’s he noted but that didn’t really surprise him. The whole place seemed to be a mishmash of things. Old and new, warm and cold, ugly and beautiful.

“Maybe you let me out once in a while and I’ll start to believe that,” the fire clapped back. Rey shook her head, no longer even dignifying the demon with an answer to his snarky comments.

“I’m Rey,” she said instead, holding her dainty hand out to Ben. His mild giddiness subsiding a little, he went to shake her hand. Her effect on him was one that made him feel like a boy again, one with a terrible crush on a pretty girl and as such he almost forgot who he actually was now. Who was actually sitting in front of her. His wrinkled, liver-spotted hands and the ache in his bones reminded him of his cruel fate. A fate that he could not change. Maybe if he could not change it, he could at least stop the wizard from enacting his plan with Rey. If she’d allow him to do such a thing that is.

“I’m Be-,” he cut himself off.

“Ben?” she asked with a wide smile. He coughed gruffly, clearing his throat. Maybe it would seem like he misspoke? He is old after all.

“Uh, no,” he continued. “Ren. Uh, Kylo Ren.”

Much to Ben’s surprise, Rey took his hand. An old man’s hand who just happened to be in her castle. She nodded slightly but her smile did not fade.

“It’s a pleasure Mr Ren,” she said. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Ben thought for a moment. Should he just try and tell her? Surely there’s no harm in trying? He looked to Calcifer who just gave him a head shake.

“I, uh-” he tried. “I came to … I need to,” he kept trying but the words died in his mouth every time. Calcifer looked on sympathetically and Ben looked to him for help but he never offered it. In his eyes, Ben was a lost cause, unbreakable curse and on death’s door. Rey looked between the two of them and when it became clear that Ben wasn’t going to finish any of the sentences he’d started, she just offered him a warm smile, gesturing to the chair he’d just vacated.

“It’s okay,” she soothed. “It looks like you’ve had a rough day,” she said, gesturing to his sandy boots. “Stay as long as you need to, Calcifer and I don’t mind, do we Cal?”

“Speak for yourself,” the flame replied. Rey tsked at him, her eyebrows pulled together in mild annoyance.

“Please excuse the demon, he has no manners,” Rey told Ben. She held up her hand, pushing a rather worn chaise lounge into a small alcove with an unseeable force. Another swipe of her hand added a heavy curtain around it, offering some privacy. “Rest. If you need anything, Calcifer will be more than happy to help you, isn’t that right?”

She looked to the fire who was casually stoking his own flame, bundling up wood pieces and ash as if preparing to bed down for the night. He said nothing, just grunted. Well, as much as a demonic fireball could grunt. Ben nodded at her gratefully.

“Thank you for your kindness, Rey,” Ben told her. Rey chuckled.

“Yeah, don’t go spreading that around. I have a fierce reputation to uphold,” she said, making her way towards the staircase that ascended into darkness. Her feet started up them, clicking lightly on the wood. “Prepare some hot water for my bath would you Cal?” she called back. As she neared the top of the steps, Ben heard the shuffling of fabric and craned his neck to see white fabric fall to the girl’s feet.

“Hey,” Calcifer called to him. “Don’t bother, grandpa, you’re not her type.” Ben blushed at making his thoughts so blatantly obvious.

“How would you know?”

“Because you look like you just climbed out your own grave!”  
  
“But you know the truth,” Ben retorted.

“Yeah but she don’t,” Calcifer replied. “Just you stick to telling the same stories over and over and complaining that the kids are playing too loud.”

“Wow, you really don’t have manners, do you?”

“I’m a fire demon, buddy, I don’t need manners.”

*****

The situation that Ben found himself in in the following weeks and months had surprised him more than anyone else but he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

When he woke the morning after his arrival, Rey wasn’t there. He woke most mornings like that where his hostess had already departed for the day. During the daytime while the castle was on the move, Ben spent his days with Calcifer, the grumpy fireball that he was. Always complaining, always moaning. Ben found it highly entertaining. The idea of a great fire demon sitting around in this enchanted castle complaining about the cold stone and his damp logs, it was comical.

Ben kept himself busy though. It started with a spot of tidying up here and there. Discovering that the castle actually had windows underneath the grime that they were caked in. Once Ben had cleaned them to the point that he could see his horrid reflection in them and the sunlight streamed in, brightening up the whole castle, Calcifer found a new thing to complain about. While it bathed the castle interior in light, it also highlighted the dilapidated state the place was in. Ben picked up a broom. He washed the floors. Cleaned the dishes. Mucked out the mess of ash that Calcifer left.

Suddenly the place began to look brand new. It still didn’t look like a castle, mind you, more like a rustic cottage. Ben liked it very much. He told Calcifer as much but the compliment went straight to the fire’s ego. He noticed the broken table leg, so he fixed that. The incessant dripping from the bathroom tap drove him to fix that also. Bits and bobs seemed to keep cropping up for him to do. A window broken here, faulty wiring there. There was always something to keep him busy and he was always determined to get it done despite how much he struggled. And boy, did he struggle. Much to Calcifer’s amusement of course.

It was weeks before Calcifer even informed him that the castle’s mundane wooden door was a portal that could easily transport him to the realm’s cities. All this time, he’d been cooped up when he could have gone anywhere he wanted. He slightly suspected that Calcifer was enjoying the company but he knew the demon would never admit it. It did make fetching groceries easier. Fresh fish from the docks in Chandrila, hot bread from Maz’s, various fruits and vegetables from the market. Ben even ventured into Coruscant once or twice. He’d never visited the smog-coated city before and while it was sorely lacking in the bright coloured, fresh food of his home town, it offered a variety of trinkets more suited to Ben’s interests. The city’s factories were the producers of datapads, speeders, droids, mechs and tech that Ben had spent most of his life admiring and tinkering with. The markets in their dusky streets offered a multitude of treasures that Ben had never managed to get his hands on before and he often cursed himself for being so old and poor.

While he may no longer have his health, his dexterity, his money and his shop, Ben often found himself so deliriously happy that he often wondered what the point of all the material things were. These times were very specific so it wasn’t difficult for Ben to figure out what had changed in his life to make him feel this way. It was the times with _her_. The beautiful witch who’d let a rotten old man into her lair and allowed him to thrive.

Ben’s time with Rey was mainly in the evenings. She’d come back from her day, goodness knows where, and eat dinner with him. He didn’t dare ask where she’d been and what she’d been doing. It wasn’t his place to. She was a powerful witch who answered to no one, let alone him and she could end him with a single swipe of her hand. But something in her eyes when she looked at him told him she wouldn’t do such a thing. She told him as much as she wanted to and Ben made himself content with that despite his curiosity nagging inside him.

  
  


He learned as much about her as she would offer, finding every morsel as enticing as the last. She made potions for the ill and aged, often refusing their payment. She made potions for the wicked and undeserving too but charged them double, sometimes triple depending on the nature of the request. She wasn’t anywhere near as terrifying as her reputation had made her out to be but that didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of it. Ben had seen that first hand. She kept up the pretense though, for what reason, Ben was unsure. He had started to suspect that it was to people away. Which was a shame for them because Rey was a wonderful conversationalist, an entertaining speaker as well as an excellent listener. She was also incredibly thoughtful and generous which was made clear when she’d gifted Ben a beautiful new toolkit that he’d mentioned in passing.

Ben couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d started falling in love with her - although he expected it was probably the very first time he saw her - but he certainly knew exactly when he’d realised that he’d fallen so deep. It was that evening when she’d gifted him with something so simple yet so meaningful and looked at him with such giddy excitement as he expressed his gratitude. Even Calcifer looked between the two of them with surprise. She made him feel like himself again, like a young man who’d fallen madly in love with a girl and the electricity between them sent jolts right to his heart. 

His old dying heart. 

And when the realisation dawned, the reality of his situation sunk back in, Ben felt the painful, disappointing pangs sting him. Because he wasn’t that man anymore and Rey would never be his. He would soon die of old age, his bitter regret being that he was never able to hold the woman he loved in his arms while Rey would go on, Ben being just a minor blip in the enormity of her life.

*****

One morning, a few weeks after his realisation, Ben woke expecting his day to be much like the rest of them. Breakfast with Calcifer, pottering around fixing things in the castle - today he had a shattered upstairs window to attend to - he was going to visit the Chandrila market for food and prepare something for him and Rey that evening. While she still disappeared every morning, Ben had noticed her coming back earlier and earlier to talk and eat with him. Ben wasn’t going to question it, he just happily enjoyed her company for as long as she would offer it to him.

But when he emerged, slowly and painfully, from the small corner of her castle that Rey had carved out for him, he was greeted with a strange but very welcome surprise.

Rey poised at the table, dressed in pristine white, looking as devastatingly stunning as always making Ben’s stomach lurch in excitement. Two mugs of steaming coffee sat on the tabletop, the smell intoxicating.

“Good morning, Kylo,” she grinned at him happily.

“Good morning to you, Rey, what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well, I had no plans today so I wondered if it was alright with you if I could join you today?”

“You let me live in your castle, I couldn’t refuse you anything,” Ben says.

“I don’t want you to feel obligated, I want you to only say yes if you want me to join you, no other reason,” she tells him.

“Rey, nothing would make me happier than your company today,” he says. He offers her a smile, he knows it’s a grotesque and nightmarish smile but it was the only way to convey his feelings to her. Yet, she grins back at him.

“Here, I made you coffee,” she gestures to the cups excitedly and Ben sits down opposite her, the fuller cup in front of him. She brings her slightly emptier cup to her lips and takes a sip, her pink tongue darting out to catch the taste left behind on them. “So, what do you have planned for today, Kylo?”

“Well, first I was planning on sorting that broken window upstairs. Stop all the kicked up sand from the castle coming in.” Ben’s gazing flitted to Calcifer whose expression became pissed.

“Why don’t you come and sit in this hearth and walk a castle around day and night, see if you’re any better!” He snapped and both Rey and Ben chuckled at him.

“No one could do it better than you Cal,” Rey commends him. He eyes her suspiciously but says nothing more. “But I would like to help you, Kylo, if that’s okay?”

“Of course,” Ben says, nodding. “After that, I was planning on visiting the market in Chandrila for some food. You can choose what you’d like for dinner tonight instead of me,” Ben says. Rey nods back in agreement.

“Sounds like a plan.”

*****

“Now, carefully lay the frame down. Watch your fingers there,” Ben says tentatively as Rey removes the broken window frame from its place on the ledge. Calcifer was gratuitous enough to stop the castle for them so they wouldn’t get wretched sand whipped into their eyes as they worked. Rey had insisted on helping properly instead of being pushed to the sidelines. So Ben supervised as Rey manhandled the glass pane to the sheet he’d spread on the floor to catch the loose glass.

“Okay, what do I do now?” she asked him. He reached for his new, gifted tool kit and handed her a small hammer and chisel.

“See where the wood joins are?” he asked, pointing them out to her. Rey nodded. “You’re going to put the end of the chisel right on the seam and tap the end with a hard but gentle hit with the hammer … if that makes any sense at all.”

Rey chuckled, her eyes trained on the job at hand, carefully placing the tools where he’d asked her to.

“I think I understand what you mean,” she assures him.

“At least one of us does,” he mumbles back, earning himself an amused smirk from her. The butterflies that had been residing permanently in his stomach recently swooped excitedly. She gave the chisel a swift hit with the hammer, pulling back when she needed to, following his bizarre and confusing instructions to the letter.

The frame came apart releasing the broken glass shard that it still clung to. Rey grinned, clearly pleased with a job well done and it occurred to Ben that to a witch who can conjure anything without breaking a sweat, accomplishing something with her bare hands was a huge deal to her. His heart swelled a little more.

“What now?” she grinned, clearly enjoying her new tinkering prowess. Ben picked up the new pane of glass that he’d purchased in Coruscant the day before and began to unwrap it from its protective cloth covering. Shiny and new, he handed the glass to her.

“Now, you place the new pane in the empty frame and because you did such an amazing job of opening the frame, it’ll only take a little nail or two to seal it up again,” he explained and he watched the faintest pink blush wash over her tanned cheeks. Had he not looked like a disgusting old man, he could have been fooled into thinking that she was as affected by him as he was her. If he could just tell her. Who he was, why he was here, that she could be in danger, that he loved her. Nevertheless, it was what it was and he was who he was now and Rey wouldn’t see him as anyone other than that old man.

“Where did you get the new glass?” she asked him while she moved the glass into position.

“Coruscant market,” he told her, helping her move the frame back into place around the new glass.

“You paid for this?” she exclaimed, her attention entirely on him now. “You should have told me you needed it and I would have made one for you.” Ben chuckled.

“Rey, if everyone were to magic up fixes to things, I’d be out of a job. Besides, it’s more satisfying this way, don’t you think?” He takes two small nails, puts one between his teeth and poises the other in place on the wooden frame. Rey hands him the hammer and he taps at the nail gently.

“You’re a tinkerer?” she asks him while he works. He takes the second nail from his mouth and starts to tap that into the frame too.

“Used to be,” he replies.

“What happened?”

“I got old,” he says flatly. There was no use in trying with unfinished sentences again. “Couldn’t work as well as I used to and the customers came less and less until I couldn’t afford to keep my shop open any longer.”

“I’m sorry,” she says and he finishes hammering the frame, admiring their top-notch teamwork.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, offering her a reassuring smile but she just looks sad. He stands, holding his hand out to her. She takes it and he pulls her to her feet, the two of them side by side as they place the new window back into place. They step back, admiring their handiwork for a moment before turning to smile at each other. “Now just the cleanup and no magic-ing it away.”

Ben kneels back on the floor to gather up the glass and Rey groans dramatically before smiling at him and getting to her knees beside him. Her nimble fingers began picking up glass shards.

“Ah!”

Ben’s head jerked up at the sound of pain, red coming from Rey’s fingertip and running down her hand. She dropped the piece of bloody glass and looked to Ben bewildered like she’d never seen her own blood before. He had her hand cradled in his in an instant and slowly brought her to her feet by her elbow. He walked her slowly to the bathroom and turned on the tap. She winced when he held her hand under the running water but she didn’t fight him, she just let him clean her wound while she watched him. When the blood had stopped running, Ben looked at the cut. I wasn’t as bad as the blood made it appear so once he’d dried it off gently, he ripped a strip of soft fabric from his shirt and tied it around her finger, finishing it off with a little bow. Rey grinned.

“I realise only now that you probably could have just healed yourself with magic,” Ben murmured looking at the makeshift bandage Rey was now sporting. She chuffed a small laugh.

“True but then I wouldn’t have this adorable, little bandage would I?” she wiggled her finger at him. He chuckled. “I can, however, do this with magic.”

Rey waved her hand at Ben and his shredded shirt magically regained its missing scrap. He hadn’t fully gotten used to being around a witch. He rarely saw her do her magic and it was even rarer for her to use it on him. It seemed she tried to avoid it as much as possible.

“There, good as new,” Rey said, standing back to admire her work.

“Probably better than new,” Ben remarked and Rey smiled.

“Well, now that you’re looking presentable again, shall we head to the market?”

“Sounds good,” Ben said.

*****

The mundane bustle of the food market seemed suddenly the most interesting thing in the whole world. Turns out that meals were yet another thing that Rey would utilise her magic for. She’d gawk at massive fish fresh off the fishing boats and hum at the delicious smells coming from Maz’s. Ben could almost see her salivating over the delicious pastries and cakes she had on display. He even offered to buy one for her but she wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, Rey produced a rather heavy pouch of coins and offered a decent stack of them to get one of everything Maz had to offer. Maz still had no idea who he was and she’d not fully warmed up to his new appearance but he was sure that if he brought Rey again, he’d certainly be welcome.

“I can’t believe you’ve never magic-ed up an apple turnover, it is magic in itself!” Ben exclaimed.

“Well if I don’t know what it is, how can I create one?” she reasoned. “I can only ‘magic it up’ if I know what it is.”

“Please tell me you have a wide and diverse palate?”

“What do you think!” she chuckles. “Why do you think I’ve enjoyed our dinners so much?”

“Here’s me thinking it was the electric conversation,” Ben quipped.

“That too,” she replied and smiled at him softly, a mischievous sparkle in her look. He smiled back at her, marvelling at the way she could make him feel so much more like himself.

“Hmm,” Ben mused, finally able to tear his gaze away from her. “Probably best to _not_ let you choose dinner then.”

“Probably not,” Rey chuckled. They looked over the stalls, Ben’s eyes scanning for something new to make for her. Maybe the fish? Chandrila did have fantastic offerings in that respect and Rey’s did look amazed by it all. But it wasn’t very special. Something told Ben that he should make it special. He looked around a little more, Rey sometimes at his side, other times running off to follow an enticing smell or something colourful and interesting had caught her eye. Her childlike glee was endearing and he was enjoying it immensely.

But as most good things do, it had to come to an end. In Ben’s case, it was a heart-stopping and rather alarming end when he stopped suddenly at the sight of a familiar face. A _very_ familiar face. One that he’d seen every morning in the mirror until about 4 months ago. While Ben had been idly strolling around the market, out in the open, he’d been totally unaware that his dark eyes had been scanning the stall also. Searching. Searching for her.

_Rey._

Ben immediately panicked. Rey. Where was Rey? What had he last seen her?

All thoughts of glorious feasts forgotten, Ben rushed the afternoon market crowd, looking for the beautiful white in the white cloak. Surely, she couldn’t be hard to miss! She hardly blends in. So where the hell was she?

He shoved through the mass, grabbing ahold of anything that looked even similar to an iridescent cape. His bones ached, the fear and worry almost setting them in stone but he couldn’t allow it to paralyse him. Not when the wizard was so close to her, wearing Ben as a mask. If he got her, it would be all his fault. He’d brought her here without a heedful thought. If anything were to happen to her, it was on him and him alone.

“Rey?” he called. “Rey!”

The late afternoon sunlight catching the shimmering cape was what captured his attention. She knelt at a fruit stall, offering a bright red apple to a small child. The scene was so wholesome that Ben was loath to interrupt it but interrupt her must.

“Rey, we should probably go,” Ben told her, trying desperately to suppress the alarm in his voice. He must not have succeeded because she looked back at him with concern.

“Why? What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he tried a little harder this time but even he could hear how forced it sounded.

“But we haven’t even picked something for dinner yet.”

“We’ve got loads of pastries for you to try, there’ll be no room for dinner too!” he attempted to joke.

“Are you sure everything’s alright?”

“Of course, let’s just go home,” he pleaded. Her eyes burned into him, observing, reading. Eventually, she nodded.

“Okay Kylo, if that’s what you want,” she conceded.

“It is.”

She nodded again and started back towards the homely facade that disguised the enchanted castle door. Ben wrapped his arm around her, a firm hand on her elbows as he guided her through the streets as hastily as he could hurry himself.

Just before they ducked through the door, Ben shot a glance over his shoulder, catching a last glimpse of the man wearing his face. The fury set in it was something he never wanted to come up against.


	3. Crawl Into Bed With a Monster.

As they ducked through the door, Rey threw a single look over her shoulder, curious to see what had riled her companion up so much. When she locked onto those familiar dark eyes, set in a handsome face, she knew.

*****

If you’d have told Rey months ago where her life would take her, she would never have believed you. Even the most renowned soothsayer could not have convinced Rey of her current situation. From day one, when she came home and found Snoke sitting at her dining table chatting to the demon who currently possessed her heart. She was certainly alarmed, keeping Snoke away from the source of her unmatched power was the whole purpose of the moving castle. He may be the Wizard of the Wastes but Rey grew up there. Alone and scared, Rey roamed the Wastes for far too long and she knew exactly how to evade him, as long as they kept moving.

The more she looked at the ugly wizard, a pink blush colouring his cheeks, Rey’s guard came down. His icy eyes melted into warm pools of gooey brown. Eyes that had been ingrained into her memory. It was  _ him _ . 

“Who’s your friend Calcifer?”

Their interactions continued as playfully as they began. Ben tried his absolute hardest to keep himself in check, Rey could see it. She didn’t exactly help the situation. She flirted with him any chance she could. There was a reason for that though.

Somehow, poor Ben had gotten himself cursed. The face he’d been cursed with had made it instantly clear whose fault it was. It was hers, she had no doubt about that. Snoke had been very clear in his pursuit of her power, no doubt at the behest of Palpatine. So when beautiful, innocent Ben showed up on her doorstep with Snoke’s grotesque face, she knew exactly what had happened and it was down to her to fix it.

The strangest thing about it was that in those moments Ben would forget himself. Forget that he was supposed to be a rotten, old man. Forget that he was supposed to be “Kylo Ren”. Forget everything, except her. A tentative touch of their hands, a coy look over the dinner table, an endearing word; was all it took for Ben to forget. When he did, it was something to behold. His soft brown eyes returned. His wrinkled, deformed face turning back as pristine and beautiful as the night she first met him. She loved bringing that out in him, making himself again, it was like nothing else mattered to them in that moment. Then he’d snap back to reality. He’d regress and hide from her, becoming that monster again.

While Rey would happily, and maybe slightly bashfully, admit that she could bring it out in him, she also would have to admit that  _ she  _ wasn’t actually doing anything. She murmured no spells, she offered no potions. Whatever magic was turning Ben back to himself in those brief moments was something else entirely and for a while now Rey had been certain that the magic was coming from Ben himself. She was also certain that he had absolutely no idea he was doing it.

As Rey began to spend more and more time with  _ Kylo _ , he began to spend longer and longer stretches of time as himself again. Sometimes they’d even share an entire meal together, laughing and joking all the while Ben sits opposite her; young and the handsome, the most perfect man she’d ever seen. How he does not realise, she doesn’t understand. How the return of his pristine features and his regained strength escapes his notice, she has no idea but the thing that really baffles her. Is how he hasn’t seemed to notice the utter adoration that pours from her whenever she looks at him. 

She’d spend all her hours with him if she could but he was still a reminder. A reminder that Palpatine and his pet Snoke are still after her and she can’t forget that. Not now that she’s got something dear to her to lose.

“You are going to tell him at some point aren’t you?” Calcifer asks as Rey slips by him one morning. She does this most mornings but on some, like today, she was shrouded in black. Using her dark cloak to hide her unsettling metamorphosis.

“Not until I figure out how to fix it,” she says.

“Rey …”

“What Calcifer?” she snaps. “What? What do you want me to do? Admit that it’s my fault? Tell him I can’t do anything to fix it? Tell him I know who he really is? What?”

“Yes,” Calcifer tells her bluntly.

“Thanks, Cal,” Rey replies facetiously.

“Come on Rey, I did as you asked and kept my mouth shut about his spontaneous transformations but we can’t just leave him in the dark like this,” he said.

“Sure we can, until I break the curse.”

“You can’t just break a curse, Rey!” Calcifer snaps, his flames flaring up a deep red in anger. Rey rushed towards him, a thundering rage to match Calcifer’s burning in her eyes.

“Will you keep it down? You’ll wake him,” she whispers angrily. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Sure doesn’t seem like it!” he clapped back. “Because no matter how many times I tell you, you don’t seem to hear me.”

“I hear you, Cal”

“Then tell him,” he says quietly. “That boy has magic in him, probably enough to break his own curse and you’re hiding it from him.”

“He’s too vulnerable like this,” Rey retorts. “If Snoke or Palpatine were to find out that he’s magical too, there’d be an even bigger target on his head than there is now. I’ll tell him when the threat is dealt with.”

Rey moves to leave again, growing claws starting to protrude from the sleeves of her cloak as she pulls the cloak’s hood over her head.

“Rey…” Calcifer’s tone was a warning now and she paused. “I hope you know what you’re doing, that kind of magic is not intended for humans.”

She turns to him, yellow eyes glowing eerily from under the shade of her hood, sharp fangs just barely visible behind her lips.

“It’s the only option I have,” she tells him.

“It’s not and you know it.”

She turns the dial by the castle’s enchanted door to a setting that only she herself dares to use. The door swings open, the air as cold and hostile as she remembered and the sky as dark as ink. She sweeps through the doorway into the blackness, leaving Calcifer’s words hanging in the air as the door slammed shut behind her.

*****

The sky was a dark navy, the clouds eternally stormy. The sun never rose but the heat never relented. An eternally unsettling place that never changed. It was just as bleak as ever. Where the sky brightened with lightning strikes that never clapped, the eerie silence threatening to deafen. Her steps crunch against the ground being the only sound, not quite sand but not quite salt, a crumbly quality that she hadn’t forgotten. Cracks on the surface raced across the bleak plains ahead of her, black lines scribbled across the icy grey stone. As a child, she’d run across them, eagerly trying not to step on them and ultimately always failing. Thinking back, she feels sorry for the child Rey, growing up the way she did, thinking that was a happy childhood. Although, you can never see the extent of darkness when you’re caught up in it.

She’s run from Exegol ever since.

She always swore to herself that she’d never return, never feel the darkness of that place chill the warmth inside her ever again. Yet, she always kept it in her door frame unable to shake it from her life. Knowing that despite her best efforts she would be back, that she would have to go back. Now, she finally knew why. Enough was enough.

She couldn’t see anyone of consequence but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. She couldn’t let her guard down, she had to be ready. If someone were here and they wanted to hurt her, they would do so with far more ferocity than some drunken, bar brawl hooligans. 

She was drawing on Calcifer’s power that he had bestowed on her when they made their deal. Her heart for his magic. Demonic magic that had severe consequences on the human body. If she wasn’t careful in her use of it, she’d stay this way forever. Eyes a villainous yellow, fangs that left bleeding wounds on her lips, claws like the most feral of monsters. 

She was a monster like this, Calcifer had warned her in the beginning. She’d been abusing his power, creating a wicked name for herself and when she found it harder and harder to change back, he just looked on in disappointment. Now that she needed to power, she could already be too far gone, never able to return. But she had to save Ben, rid him of the dangers he was aware that hovered over his head.

The irony would be if at the end of all this, Rey does what she has to for him, that Ben could never love a horrifying creature like her.

As she neared the crumbling temple, she could feel the dark magic ebbing and flowing around it. Enchanted dark shields protecting their ancient Master that cowered within. She hesitated for a moment in the black mouth entrance of the ruins and she lifted her foot to step inside.

“I’m sure you understand why I can’t let you do that,” a voice came. A familiar, warm, buttery voice that usually made her heart soar but now filled her only with a wretched dread. 

She turned to him, his charming eyes set in his beautiful face but with a wicked smirk that did not suit him.

“Snoke,” she says flatly. “Or is it Ben? How committed are you to this charade?”

“You can call me whatever you want,” he purred. His attempt at using Ben to win her over was rather revolting.

"You're a monster," she spat.

"Yes I am," he agreed, his eyes darkening. They held each other's eyes, fury burning from one set into the other and back. Rey's demonic magic tingled at her fingertips, desperate to fly. “It’s funny, I assumed that your hateful spirit would soften at my new appearance. Doesn’t it please you?”

“Not in the slightest,” she hisses. Snoke sighs.

“Shame then that for all the boy suffers, it was all for nought.” He shrugs indifferently.

"Break the curse on him then," she says finally. She's not asking, she's ordering. A rotten smirk quirked at the corners of Ben's pouty lips.

"Never."

One word was all it took. That word. Rey threw her magic at him full force, sparking icy blue lightning hurtling from her clawed hands, searching for flesh to strike. It didn't reach it however, it was meant instead with wicked lightning returning, stopping it in its tracks the two beams sparking and sizzling where they collided.

She pushed at it, willing all her hate into the sparks, begging them to burn her enemy to ashes. But he pushed back, blueish purple lightning snapping and eating at her magic, inching closer and closer. With a feral scream, she shoved back, deflecting the incoming purple bolt across Exegol's crumbling terrain, throwing splinters of stone up in the air.

She was breathless. She wanted to double over, hands on her knees and gasp for breath like she’d just ran a mile but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her weak. She stood tall and pushed the burning in her lungs down, pausing the pain for the moment, not allowing herself to feel for the moment

Despite having Ben’s young and fit body, the energy Snoke was using came from within and deep inside he was still the rotten old monster that he’d turned Ben into. He was tired, she could see it but she’d have to kill him before she’d get any closer to Palpatine. And that would be no easy feat and certainly impossible without allowing Calcifer’s magic to consume more of her soul. 

Snoke whipped a bolt of lightning at her and another and another. She deflected each one with a quick swipe, sending them cracking across the dust. But it was wearing on her. He began to advance on her and she knew she had to come up with a melee defence.

Rey held out her hand, drawing all her magic there and producing a magnificent yellow blade of lighting, a sword composed of pure magic. She held the sizzling bolt in her fist tightly, as if it was powerful enough to free itself from her grip. Rey twirled the blade around herself before holding it out in front of her. 

Snoke stopped, observing her for a moment before holding out his hand and producing a light blade of his own. A fiery red one that spit and hissed angrier than hers. He lunged forward, swiping his arm with a strike and Rey blocked it with her own blade. He struck again and again, Rey deflecting each time. They parried each other, neither letting the other rest for a second before jumping in for another attack.

Where in a battle of magic, Rey could easily tire Snoke, in physical battle she could not. He had control of Ben’s body now, stronger and bigger than her and she could feel herself becoming overpowered. He lunged, bringing his blade down on her from above his head and she blocked it just before it struck her but he pressed into it, pushing both lightning blades closer to her face.

He was so close to her now, jutting his face towards hers, she could see the wizard underneath the facade. Like seeing imperfections in a painting, she could see the cracks of his curse. The eyes were a little too light, Ben’s skin not quite as porcelain, his smile not as wholesome. The clue there everywhere if you knew how to see them. All the things Rey loved about Ben were tainted in this version of him.

“I have to say, you’re much less superficial than I gave you credit for,” he sneered at her. Ben’s warm, round voice corrupted by the gravelly, croaking voice of the man underneath. “Here’s me thinking I could have you with a pair of pretty eyes.”   
  
“You’re revolting,” she hissed.   
  
“Maybe but you’re the one that fell in love with the version of me living in your castle,” he replied with a devilish smirk. “You do love him don’t you?”   
  
Rey couldn’t reply. Anything she said would only make matters worse. Put a target on Ben, put him in even more danger. So she said nothing but her expression must have given her away.

“Ah, you do,” he said, reading the love and concern that flitted briefly in her eyes. “Pity he’ll die soon in that corpse of a body I trapped him in.”   
  


Rey screamed, a feral, furious, thundering scream of rage and shoved the towering wizard off her. 

“Impressive, considering you don’t have a heart,” he added. “I wonder how Ben would feel, knowing you can never love him as he does you because you gave it up to be this monster.”

She marched towards him and kicked, landing her boot forcefully in his gut, sending him tumbling across with barren land. His red lightning sword extinguished, he scrambled to his knees only to be kicked back into the dirt by Rey. She held her blade to him, the point of the yellow fiery beam an inch away from his face.

“Fuck you, Snoke.”

She raised her wrist to strike when he yelled.   
  


“Wait! You kill me and you’ll never get Ben back.”

“What?” she asked, her hand stayed for the moment.

“Spare me and I’ll break his curse,” he said. She stared at him, trying to read his expression but anything that wasn’t Snoke’s villainy was Ben’s innocence. She couldn’t figure out where one ended and the other began. 

“No, you won’t. You said so yourself,” she told him, raising her hand again to kill him with a single blow.

“Do you really want to take that risk? I’m the only one who can break it.”

Rey thought about his words and Ben unknowingly using his own magic to transform back. She pondered her options. She could kill Snoke right here, right now. She could come back for Palpatine’s head next time and for all she knew Ben was quite capable of breaking the curse on his own. On the other hand, though, he hasn’t been able to stay transformed. Rey had never heard of someone breaking their own curse before, she wouldn’t even know how to help him. He could be stuck that way for the rest of his short life. Passing away in her arms before she could ever truly have him.

Would it really kill her to show mercy to Snoke this one time in the hopes that he’ll return Ben to her? Probably. But for Ben, she’d risk that a thousand times over.

The lightning blade disintegrated in her hand, her attack disappearing with it. At her resignation, Snoke grins evilly with Ben’s beautiful mouth.

“Just as superficial as I thought,” he remarked before disappearing before her eyes. She panted, her ragged breath the only sound she heard over the thundering of her heart racing in her ears. She yelled and frustrated exclamation, anything to externalise her fury with herself right now. Anything to break the silence she was left in.

She’d just made a grave mistake.

*****

Rey tried, she really did, with all her heart to turn herself back. But Calcifer was right, just as she dreaded and knew he would be. She no longer had the power to transform at will, now she had to wait for the power to let go of her if it ever did. She just prayed desperately that Ben would be at the market today and she could scurry into her chambers and hide until it passed. 

She had no idea how long she had been gone. Time in Exegol didn’t pass the same, it was unpredictable. She could have been gone for a minute or two days. She slips in the door quietly, it’s dark and silent save for the crackling of Calcifer devouring logs in the hearth. She’d pulled her hood back over her head, hiding her grey skin and sunken cheekbones. She tiptoed past the fireplace, trying to avoid Ben’s sleeping area altogether.

“You couldn’t change back could you?”   
  
She stopped at his groggy voice but couldn’t face him. She didn’t want him to see how far she descended into the darkness.

“I told you to be careful Rey,” he added.

“I’m aware Cal but there’s not much I can do about it now is there?” Rey snapped back in hushed tones.

“Of course there is but you refuse to see it as an option,” Calcifer says.   
  
“I can’t give up the power Cal, I just… I just can’t.” She looks towards the curtain in the corner, pulled slightly open and through the gap she can see Ben’s sleeping chest rising and falling peacefully. “Especially not now.”

“You’re not giving him enough credit.”

“You’re underestimating Palpatine,” she clapped back.

“Did you at least deal with Snoke?”

“I let him go,” she admits.

“What?!”

“He’s the only one who can break the curse Cal, I had to!”

“He’s been breaking it on his own!”

“For like ten seconds at a time!”

“Now who’s underestimating people,” he said flatly. Rey couldn’t listen to this anymore, Calcifer’s unwillingness to understand her motivations was grating on her. He was a fire demon, he knew nothing of the lengths mortals would go to to protect the ones they love.

“How long will I be like this?” She turned ever so slightly, unfurling her long claws out the sleeves of her cloak, Calcifer’s light just catching her yellow eyes.

“You’ve been gone about three days so at least a few more hours, how many more I can’t say.”

She doesn’t answer. She continues her quiet path through the castle, up the stairs and closing the door to her chambers over and clicking the lock before Ben could see her. She leaned back against the wooden door, squeezing her tired eyes shut. She was so weary. Three days. It hadn’t felt like three days while she was in it but now that she was back, it all hit her at once. She sighed, feeling the beginnings of sleep begin to wash over her.

A gentle knocking behind her startled her awake.

“Rey?”

_ Ben. _ He called her name so softly, so full of concern. She wanted to see him so badly but she couldn’t show herself like this.

“Go away Kylo.” Her biting tone made her wince. She didn’t want to hurt him but she had a feeling that he wouldn’t leave otherwise.

“Are you alright? I’ve been worried about you,” he says through the door, ignoring her cutting rudeness entirely. He was worried. About her. No one had ever been worried about her before, cared about her comings and goings, feared for her safety. Warmth bloomed in her chest.

“Please Kylo, just go away,” she begged this time, unable to muster the viciousness she needed to shoo him. Her pathetic tone only seemed to increase Ben’s concern.   
  
“Rey, I’m coming in.”

“No!” she yelped. She pressed her hands against the door, holding it closed. “Please, don’t.”

“I haven’t seen you in three days. I feared the worst and now that you’re back, nothing about this is making me feel any better,” he tells her sternly. She heard his words, thinking to herself that if the roles were reversed, she’d do exactly the same thing. “Let me in Rey, please.”

She clicked the lock open and waited, her head still shrouded in black cloth. The door opened slowly and Ben’s handsome face looked around it, searching for her. She stood motionless as he approached, she didn’t want to scare him more than necessary, and she braced herself for the moment he ran from her in fear. He reached out to her, his fingers going for the trim of her hood. Instinctively, she flinched, pulling back from him.

“Rey,” he whispered. His voice was soft and soothing as if he were attempting to tame a wild beast. Maybe he was. She stilled and he closed in, his fingers grasping the black fabric and pulling in down over her hair.

She couldn’t bear to look at him, dreading the look on his face. Still, he did not gasp, or scream or run in terror. Instead, he moved closer, one hand snaking to hold her waist, the other reached for her jaw, tilting her head gently upwards to look at him. Her yellow eyes blinked wildly, trying to comprehend the expression on his face.

If Rey wasn’t as smart as she was, she would have easily confused his concern for love.

His thumb stroked along her jawline, his eyes raking over her face. She watched him pause when he caught a glimpse of the sharp fangs leaving nervous indents on her bottom lip and when he’d looked her over, his eyes stopped on hers.

“Who did this to you?”

“No one,” she told him. He looked confused. She sighed. “I did this to myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“A long time ago, I made a deal with a demon. That deal came with consequences and I was young and stupid and thought I knew better,” she explained as Ben hung on every word. “Now I pay the price for my ignorance.”

“Are you stuck this way?”

“Calcifer says it should wear off in a few hours but if I keep going like this, I might never turn back.”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” he asked quietly. She chuckled softly.

“There are  _ things _ that have to be taken care of and I alone am just not enough.”

“Rey, I can’t fathom a situation where  _ you _ are not enough,” he tells her. Her lips curl upwards and Ben’s thumb reaches to stroke the smile playing in the corner of her mouth. His eyes roam over her face before settling on her mouth. Rey thought, or  _ hoped _ , that he might kiss her. She thought she felt him pull on her waist a little tighter, dip his head a little lower. She waited with bated breath for the moment to come, his eyes flicked back up to hers and the warmth of them made her melt. “You need some rest.”

Rey exhaled, her heart pounding in her ears as he led her with the hand still around her waist to her plush bed. He untied the knot of her cloak as her neck and pushed it off her shoulders and pulled it off her arms. She climbed up onto the bed as Ben walked around and draped her cloak over the foot of it. She pulled her knees up under her chin, wrapping her arms around them, claws digging into her calves.

“Get some sleep Rey, I’m sure you’ll be back to normal when you wake up,” he said warmly, giving her a comforting smile from the end of the bed. He turned to leave and as he did, Rey was overcome with a touch of sudden melancholy. Despite her earlier protests of him even being here, now that his hand grasped the door handle, she didn’t want him to go.

“Be- uh, Kylo, wait!” He stopped instantly and turned to her. “Will you stay with me? Please?” He watched her for a moment, his expression wary.

“Are you sure?” He asked tentatively. She nodded. “Then of course I will.” He came back towards her, circling around the huge bed as she shimmied over to one side, allowing him to have the other. He sank his weight down, perched on the edge, a little unsure. Rey waited for him patiently, she imagined it would be rather daunting to crawl into bed with a monster. He turned to her, her apprehension definitely visible. He smiled. He leaned back and swung his legs up onto the bed, lying slightly upright beside her. Seeing him settle comfortably beside her eased some of Rey’s tension. She shuffled towards him slightly.

“May I?” she asked timidly, gesturing towards the space on the bed between them. He nods, lifting his arm to make space for her. She slides over closing the gap, the warmth of his body so inviting. She curls up against him, her head resting in the crook of his shoulder. He carefully brings his arm around her, his large palm spread over her hip where it rested.

Rey tried to remember a time that she’d felt so at ease with another person but only coming to one conclusion. That she’d never actually been this close to anyone before. She chuffed a quiet laugh.

“What’s funny?” Ben asked and Rey marvelled in the strange intimacy that came from feeling the vibrations of his voice come from the body next to her.

“I just realised that I’ve never actually been this close to someone before,” she told him and she felt him clutch her tighter. “I’ve always been alone.”

“You’re not alone,” he says and she pulls back to look up at him. His eyes looking down at her intensely.

“Neither are you,” she tells him.

*****

When she awoke sometime later, Rey was comforted by the warm beautiful man that enveloped her. Her tiny, clawless hand lay across his broad chest, blanketed by his large one. His arm was wrapped around her, cradling her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. Suddenly, it hit her. That’s exactly what he was. The most precious thing in the world to her. Not riches, not the castle, not grumpy little Calcifer, not even her magic. She knew suddenly the best way to protect him now and after all these years, she was willing to go that far. She’d go to the ends of the world for him.

Delicately, she removed herself from his embrace, careful not to wake him. He grumbled a little and turned but he kept soundly sleeping. She walked lightly to the door, slipping out and pulling it over quietly behind her.

Calcifer eyed her apprehensively as she crept down the staircase and crouched in front of him.

“I see we’re back to normal,” he noted.

“You were right Cal,” she tells him.

“Oh?”

“Yes, I don’t have to use your magic to save him. I can use my own,” she tells him excitedly. Calcifer looked at her in bewilderment, she knew she’d seem crazy, especially after all this time but what better time to give it all up than for the man she loved?

“Rey, you understand what you’re doing don’t you?” he asks seriously. She nods.

“How can I love him completely without it?” she says.

“You’re sure?”

She grinned at him, the most honest, deep and heartfelt smile she had felt cross her features in the longest time. She nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life Calcifer.” He held her gaze for a moment, sizing her up, maybe waiting for her to change her mind. When it seemed that she wouldn’t, he nodded and returned to her something precious that hadn’t been in her possession for many years. Something that, despite regaining back from the demon that she’d willed it to, didn’t really feel like hers at all anymore. Really it belonged to only one person; Ben.

Her heart.

*****

Rey shoved it back into her chest without a second thought, knowing that the power within could give her all the strength she ever needed. She’d forgotten how powerful it felt, now natural the magic within felt, untainted by demonic energy. Her chest felt heavy but in the best way possible and she had to take a deep breath feeling it pounding inside her chest again. She reached out, placing a small hand over his ribs, feeling his heart beating against her palm in tandem with hers. She hated to admit it but Snoke had been right. She wondered if she had truly felt love until this moment, her redeemed heart fluttering erratically in her chest at the sight of Ben stirring from sleep. He blinked up at her, the peacefulness of sleep fading in his eyes, before reaching one of his large hands up to cover hers that lay against his chest.

No. She had always loved him, the presence of her heart just made that fact so concrete that she couldn’t run from it now even if she tried.

“Rey?”

“Sorry I woke you,” she whispered with a smile. She could control her hand that reached out to brush a stray lock of black hair from his sleepy face.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his large fingers wrapping around her hand. She hummed and nodded.

“I wanted to thank you, Ben. For staying with me, for not running,” she said. It was only when his eyes widened that she realised what she had said. He sat upright, his attention solely on her as he held her hand in his.

“What did you say?”

She smiled softly, reaching out to card her fingers through his hair.

“I said, thank you … Ben.”

The quietest, most delicate gasp escaped him and in an instant, he had swept her up in his arms, pressing his lips onto hers. Rey didn’t hesitate, she kissed him back with just as much fervour, plunging her fingers into his hair as he wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her onto his lap. She straddled him, knees pressing into the soft mattress on either side of his hips and she kissed him as if her life depended on it. When they finally pulled back for a breath, Rey revelled in the adoration in his eyes. Her fingertips roaming over his face, around his dark eyes, across his cheekbones, along his jaw. Her eyes followed along the trail that her fingers created and she smiled.

“So beautiful,” she murmured, flicking her gaze back to his. His eyes had darkened with lust, no doubt Rey’s had done the same. Her smile faded, replaced with something more salacious. Her hands continued to move over him, moving further south, trailing down his chest. He said nothing, just watched her as she explored him. Her hands reached his hips, experimentally she took hold of the hem of his cotton shirt, teasing it upwards. Ben made no move to stop her so she pulled at it and Ben lifted his arms for her to peel it off him entirely.

Rey almost groaned at how perfect he was. Broad and solid, she couldn’t stop her hands from running all over his chest. When she looked back at him, he looked desperate, hungry. For her. 

She reaches for his large hands, bringing them to rest on her thighs. It was the only encouraging push he needed. His hands moved up her thighs, skimming her hips and slipping underneath her top, stroking at the bare skin he found there. He continued to push, push her top higher and higher until she grabbed at it, pulling it off and throwing it to the floor with Ben’s.

His fingers danced delicately over her skin, his large fingers burning hot trails over her stomach as he touched her, every move feeling like a lightning jolt to her soul. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her flush to his body, the heat of their skin finally touching all-consuming. He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, pulling her closer still as he kissed her with a consuming need that Rey felt deeply. Her assault on his lips grew hungry and quickly Ben matched her, the two moving together in tandem. 

When her hands fumbled with the fastening on his trousers, Ben didn’t stop her. When he eagerly went for hers, Rey didn’t stop him. They removed every piece of fabric that separated them swiftly and without words until there was nothing left between them. They were both more than happy to give the other everything they had wanted desperately since the very beginning.


	4. Only Heard Stories Of Such Things.

Ben jumped awake, his eyes flashing open with the memories of the night before running through his mind. He blinked a few times, trying to place himself. Realising he was in his private nook in the castle’s main living area, he began to doubt his own memory. Rey had come home, after days of missing her and worrying about her, she’d come back. 

She’d been … different. Her inviting hazel eyes had turned an unnerving yellow and there were fangs and claws where her dainty, feminine features should have been. He was sure he had gone to her. Begged her to let him in. Held her warily in his arms. She had begged him to stay with her, hadn’t she? They’d fallen asleep wrapped up in each other, hadn’t they? He’d awoken to her kiss, her touch, her making love to him, hadn’t he?

He was so sure of all these things. So sure of the love that came over him as he cradled her naked in his arms. So sure that he could see the same emotions welling up in the blown pupils of her eyes. So sure in every mundane, horrible, boring, insignificant decision he’d ever made throughout his 30 pitiful years of existence because every single one of them had led him to her. To that moment when everything was perfect. Even the image of her crying out in bliss beneath him was such a beautiful sight that he’ll never be able to forget it.

But no.

She’d also called him Ben, hadn’t she? Teased her fingers through the black hair that he no longer possessed. Trailed her hands over a lean body that was no longer his. Whispered a name against his lips in ecstasy that he hadn’t gone by in months.

These things he was also sure of - these more undeniable than the rest. As much as he desperately wished last night to be true, he had to conclude, as he looked down at his wrinkled, liver-spotted hands, that it was just another fantasy. Another one of those moments where he was sure she could see  _ him _ . But it would seem that he was senile as well now.

Ben’s attention turned to the noise that had originally woken him. Just beyond the curtain around him, he heard voices murmuring in muted tones. Rey and Calcifer were talking quietly and Ben strained to hear what it was that they were saying that the secrecy was necessary.

“You’re sure you can do this?” Calcifer whispered, employing a level of furtiveness that Ben was unaware that he possessed. “You’re waltzing around with the one thing he desperately wants more than anything.”

“I’m certain, I feel stronger than I ever have,” Rey’s voice replies. Visions of a dark Rey with fangs and grey skin flooded Ben’s mind, was that part real then? Where did reality stop and his fantasy begin? “Besides, it no longer has your magic. It would be useless to him now!”

“That doesn’t mean he won’t take it anyway, Rey,” Calcifer’s voice warns. “And that’s not what  _ Palpatine _ wants though and you know it.”

“I do … but I have to do this.”

“What do you want me to do Rey?” he asked her. Rey chuckled quietly.

“You don’t have to do anything, Cal, you’re free now remember?”

“I’m not going to just leave you, Rey,” he told her earnestly. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Thank you,” she says. Ben can hear shuffling followed by Rey’s receding footsteps towards the door. Suddenly, she stops. “Actually Cal, there’s one thing you can do for me.”

“Name it.”

“Keep Ben safe for me will ya?”

Wait.

Did Rey just … call him Ben?

It was real? It all was? Ben scrambled to his feet, desperate to catch Rey before she left. Left to do whatever crazy thing she had planned that had Calcifer - a demon - so concerned. Pulling back the curtain, he watched the castle door click shut, the briefest glimpses of a navy sky beyond was all he saw as Rey disappeared into it.

“Rey!” he called, his voice trapped inside the castle walls and echoing back to him.

“She can’t hear you, Romeo,” Calcifer quipped.

“Where did she go?” Ben stomped across the floor hastily, grabbing for the castle’s door handle noting that the dial was turned to a setting he’d never seen before. As he pulled the door open, the dial spun and he was greeted with the bright morning sun of Chandrila beyond the threshold. Ben turned the dial back himself but when he went for the door, it spun again, opening up to Coruscant this time. “Calcifer! Take me to her!”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Ben challenged.

“I said no,” Calcifer told him. 

“You’ll change that door back to whatever hellscape Rey just went to  _ alone _ .”

“No. I won’t. And I’m still a demon buddy so I’d like to see you make me,” Calcifer snapped back. Ben, with pursed lips and narrowed eyes, huffed and angry breath and stomped to the kitchen sink where he proceeded to fill a pail with icy cold water. “What is that? What are you doing?”

Calcifer - the  _ great fire demon _ \- sounded panicked, he looked it too when Ben turned and marched towards him, water splashing out onto the floor. Ben held the pail up, poised to spill it’s contents all over the burning hearth when Calcifer stopped him.

“Ben, stop! Please!”

Ben dropped the bucket, water sloshed at his feet but he didn’t care, he wasn’t playing along with this charade any longer.

“How long have you known my real name?”

“A while,” Calcifer admitted. “Rey told me.”

“And how long has she known?”

“Since the very first day when she walked in and saw you sitting here covered in sand.”

Ben was flabbergasted. All this time, she knew who he was and didn’t say anything.

“How did she know?” Ben muttered. Calcifer chortled a barking laugh.

“You’re joking right?” Ben narrowed his eyes at the demon.

“Calcifer, you’re going to tell me everything and you damn well better not leave anything out.”

*****

Rey strode across the stone desert and this time fear did not accompany her. The usual uneasiness that Exegol was known to instil in people wasn’t there, instead only a strong determination. To have all of this just be an insignificant blip in her past, not a foreboding shadow over her future. The hulking monolith of Palpatine’s egotistic shrine to himself loomed in low, murky clouds, the structure so massive that the lightning striking it did as much as a fly landing on a windowsill.

Her heart beat confidently in her chest, she had forgotten how powerful it had felt. She had given it up to Calcifer before she had been fully trained, giving away her greatest source of power before fully knowing how to use it. Now, she had that knowledge and her heart seemed mightier for it. She felt unstoppable. Snoke would have to be utterly moronic to want to piss her off now. She’d rip him limb from limb.

“Back so soon?”

Then again, she was never under the impression that Palpatine’s lackey was intelligent.

“Snoke,” she turned to him, a palpable smile spread across her face.

Her smile becomes even more gleeful when she sees the deteriorating facade he’s been keeping. Not only was Ben somehow managing to slowly break his own curse but it seems Ben’s uncharted magic was taking its toll on the wizard who cursed him as well. The copy wasn’t flawless anymore - although Rey would argue that it never was. Ben’s youthful hue was severely diminished, Snoke’s sallow skin beginning to taint his cheeks again. The cold, blue eyes had returned, any hint of brown non-existent and while both Ben and Snoke had always been tall, he now seemed to be stooping a little, like his old bones were struggling to support Ben’s large frame.

“You’re not looking so good,” she adds.

“Yes, a minor mishap,” he said, Ben’s round voice was sharp and grating. “It will be rectified shortly.”

“Oh yeah? You suddenly going to cease being human garbage?”

Snoke gave her a small sardonic laugh, barely more than a grunt of derision.

“Very cute. Shame your boyfriend isn’t here to see you acting all tough,” he says.

“Oh, I’m not acting,” Rey replies, her increasing glee too much to hide.

“Where’s your demon friend?” he says, their rival banter falling flat and obviously no longer entertaining. “I think I would like to relieve you of him now.”

“Oh, he’s gone.”

Rey would like to say that she was above enjoying the deadpan look on Snoke’s face but she would certainly be lying. Seeing the man’s face fall in displeasure brought her unbridled happiness.

“Pardon me?”

“I set him free.”

“You did  _ what _ ?!” Rey got a sick pleasure out of seeing Snoke’s calm resolve break at her revelation. He’s only been after Calcifer’s power for himself for years, this had to sting. “But that would mean…”

“Yup.” Rey willed her magic through her veins, spreading it to every inch of her body, allowing it to lift her off the ground and hold her in the air. “I have my fucking heart back, asshole.”

With a quick wave of her arm, she whipped the wizard off his feet and sent him tumbling across the stone. His paling skin was beaten and bloodied by the action. He looked up at her and a dark trickle of blood trailed down his chin and dripped on to the ground beneath him. The fear in his eyes was warranted, her ancestral magic pulsing through her body, virtually untouchable now that he was weakened and she wasn’t weighed down with dark magic.

He reached up, a desperate bolt of blue lightning shooting towards her. She stopped it easily with a protective spell. He shot another and another, feeble attempts at keeping her at bay as she stalked towards his crumpled, stolen body. Seeing Ben’s body cowering in fear from her just made her all the more furious.

Snoke would pay for what he had done to Ben. She’d make sure of it. He’d pay for destroying the life of an innocent man who had done nothing more than be so beautiful that Rey had fallen for him instantly. He’d lost his livelihood, his home, his life all because of this wretched monster recoiling from her. Ben had been lonely and weak and hurting for months and Rey couldn’t change that but she could avenge it.

Her feet touched the ground just in front of him and Snoke scrambled back from her. He knew that her natural power was unmatched by his waning magic. It was only a matter of time now, she’d finish him before he had the chance to hurt anyone else. Rey reached for him, grabbing him by his neck and dragging him to his feet. She looked into his joyless eyes, the only emotion there being fear for himself. Selfish to the bitter end.

“Don’t worry Snoke,” Rey said, her voice threateningly quiet. “Your Master will be joining you in Hell shortly.”

From Rey’s hand, her yellow lightning blade shot out, slicing right through the flesh of Snoke’s torso. His eyes widened in surprise before the light behind them snuffed out completely. His legs fell to the ground with a grotesque thunk before Rey dropped the rest on him on top.

Rey wasn’t entirely certain what would happen when she killed Snoke but she  _ was _ certain that it would be one of two things.

The first was that absolutely nothing would happen. Snoke would be dead, the hope of breaking Ben’s curse gone with him, leaving behind only the dismembered body that resembled the man she loved. The sight of him in two ingrained in her memory, haunting her in her dreams while she sleeps soundly next to him.

The other was that upon his death, Snoke's meagre attempt at keeping up his charade would finally fall. He would return to his deformed, old self, his magic gone and only his corpse left lying in the Exegol desert, at the foot of his Master’s soon-to-be grave. Snoke will leave behind nothing and eventually his body will disappear just like everyone’s memory of him. Ben’s curse would disappear with him, bringing him back from the brink of death himself. Giving him his life back.

She watched on as Ben’s face morphed into Snoke’s rotten, horrid one again. His body parts wrinkling and decaying back to their former state and Rey let out a sigh of relief.

Whatever was going to happen next, whatever was going to happen to her, she didn’t care. She’d broken Ben’s curse and that’s what mattered.

*****

Ben sat with his head in his hands, braced on his knees, mulling over the story that Calcifer had just spun him. That’s certainly what it seemed like; a story. An insane, marvellous, terrifying, exhilarating story. The contents of which he didn’t know what to do with.

“What are you saying here, Calcifer? That I’m a Wizard?”

“God no, Wizards undergo years and years of training under a Master before they’re let loose on the world. I assume you’ve never been trained?”

“Trained?! I didn’t even know I had magic, how could I have been trained?” Ben snapped at him.

“Yet, you manage to break a curse put on you?” Calcifer replied.

“Look at me! Do I look like a curse free man to you?!” Ben yelled and held up his wrinkled hands to Calcifer. The conversation was becoming so increasingly confusing and frustrating that Ben didn’t know what to do with himself.

“I don’t know what to tell ya, Ben,” Calcifer told him honestly. “I’ve never seen anything like you before. Unknowingly wielding such powerful magic? It’s unprecedented!”

“So, now that I know about it, how do I break the curse once and for all?”

“Beats me,” the demon says with a little shrug. “All I know is it usually happens when you’re happy or content or excited. Y’know, like a dog.”

Ben narrowed his eyes at Calcifer, obviously rather pleased with himself. Ben ignored him, deciding instead to rack his brain for any moment in his last few painful, decaying months that he could possibly consider happy. He found, much to his surprise, that he was flooded with memories. Of happily eating at the dinner table with Rey telling amazing stories across from him. Of feeling content in his situation when we got to spend his days touring market stalls with her. Of feeling the excitement that filled him when each night she would come home and look at him as if she’d missed him just as much as he missed her. And it struck him. It was  _ her. _

“It’s Rey,” Ben says aloud. “All these times, it’s been because I’m with Rey, isn’t it?”

“Hey, you said it, not me.”

“So true love does break curses?”

“First of all, gross,” Calcifer said. “Secondly, while your love for Rey didn’t  _ actually _ break anything, I will admit that it seems to have played a major part in it.”

“Then why am I still sitting here? The woman I love is alone, doing god knows what!” Ben gets up abruptly, shuffling quickly towards the castle door before Calcifer stops him.

“Hey, hey, hey! If you think I’m letting you hobble off to certain doom like that then you definitely are senile, old-timer!”

Ben didn’t get a chance to argue his point, he didn’t get to respond at all because instead of words, a howling scream ripped from his throat. He dropped to the wooden floor, his bones in sheer agony, breaking and bending. His skin pulled and stretched tightly over muscles that bulged and wrapped around his warping limbs. Calcifer watched on in horror. He’d seen Ben change back and forth countless times but it had been nothing like this. This was dark magic, that even in breaking still caused pain. Whatever magic Ben possessed, it wasn’t this.

When the shrieking and the snaps of bones finally stopped, Ben lay crumpled on the floor. His breath was heavy, panting through the aching that filled his whole body. He managed to pull himself to his knees, his hair falling forward into his eyes. He brushed it back, looking up at Calcifer who just stared back at him. His hand full of his hair, he stood a second to acknowledge the action, slowly bringing his hand forward to look at it. The skin is pale and smooth. He touched his face, all evidence of deformities gone, feeling his hair brush his ears again and the scruffy tufts that ran along his jaw. He laughed a bewildered and shaking laugh but it was wrought with relief.

“Welcome back buddy,” Calcifer said finally and Ben chuckled. He clutched his chest, taking in such a deep breath that he thought he might burst.

Ben manages to get to his feet, running his hands down his torso, making sure he was real. That he wasn’t dreaming. When he was sure that he was, he was back to himself again, he smiled.

“Can I go after her now?” he asked mischievously. Calcifer looked him over, clearly making double checks. Behind Ben, the dial for the door clicked. Ben watched the setting change to the black miscellaneous one that Rey had disappeared into.

“I don’t see why not,” Calcifer chimed, throwing the door open for Ben. Ben smiled at him and gave him a nod. He shucked off his cloak and leapt down the stairs and out the castle door without a second thought.

The castle was eerily quiet and Calcifer looked around at the place before a thought struck him.

“Why am I still sitting here?” he said to no one. He took in the castle one last time before gathering up all his magic and blasting up out of the ash-filled hearth, through the roof and into the sky.

*****

  
  


Out in the Wastes, Rey’s moving castle stilled. What seemed to be a shooting star burst out of the roof of the thing and the entire structure collapsed into a massive heap of eccentric pieces of scrap. Maybe someday scavengers would come along and raid it, taking pieces of it for themselves but until then it would join the other scrap heaps scattered across the desert. Except this one wasn’t a casualty of war. This one had a better story, one of the greatest some might say.

The story of how a Witch without a heart fell in love.

*****

Ben bounded across the stone wasteland, the crunching of his feet beneath him and his heavy breath the only sound other than the powerful silence that pressed in his ears. He had no idea where he was, he’d never even heard descriptions of a place like this to make an informed guess. The monolithic structure in the distance was the only thing that stood out to him, therefore he knew that’s where he must go. 

He pressed on, utilising his regained agility to its fullest extent. He felt amazing! Running so fast, breathing deeper than he had in months, feeling no ache in his joints, just the sweet burn that came from being able to just run again.

As he got closer to the monument, outlines of dark shapes started to come into view. A bit away, a crumpled figure lay on the ground and as Ben drew closer, he could see that the figure was actually in two pieces. He stopped by the body, looking down seeing his old reflection looking back at him. Snoke. He finally got what was coming to him and Ben had a feeling that he knew who had dealt the killing blow. He turned in place frantically.

Where was she?

The entrance to the stone structure disappeared into darkness almost immediately, if Rey went in there, nothing was going to stop Ben from going after her. He ran in, the light behind him fading quickly and his eyes strained in the darkness. He could barely see a thing and while he was sure that he would adjust to it soon, he couldn’t wait that long.

“Rey? Rey!”

His voice bounced back at him off the stone accompanied by silence. Until …

“Ben?”

“Rey!”

He willed his eyes to see her as he barreled towards her voice. He blinked frantically, the light finally breaking through and he could see an angelic, white silhouette manifesting in the stark blackness.

Ben had thought many times of all things he would do if he ever became himself again. It seemed that he’d been able to do many of them last night and while thoughts of kissing Rey stupid and taking her away from this place clouded his mind when he crashed into her all he wanted was to hold her. He scooped her up in his arms, her legs dangling towards the ground as she wrapped herself around him, her fingers carding through his hair, her cheek pressed to his.

“You’re back,” she whispers. He crushed his arms around her as if there were nothing more precious to him.

“I never left.”

He placed her feet back on the ground and reluctantly released her. She smiled up at him that while it warmed his heart it also seemed bittersweet.

"I'm coming with you," he tells her. He doesn't even finish his sentence before Rey is shaking her head at him.

"No, Ben. It's too risky, you don't know your own capabilities yet and I definitely know Palpatine's."

"Who is Palpatine?"

"He's a threat and given the chance, he will take everything I love, that includes you."

“I’m not letting you go alone,” Ben told her forcefully. She drew back but not in anger or annoyance but genuine surprise. It was probably the first time in a long time that someone had flat out refused to do what she said and she didn’t seem to mind it.

“Okay but you do what I say and follow my lead,” she tells him.

“Of course.”

They press on slowly but determined, Ben unsure if Rey was apprehensive or scared. He’d never seen her scared before so he had no idea what it would look like if she was. Still, he was wise enough not to press her about it.

As they moved further into the imposing structure, the walls around them drew in closer and the ceiling ascended higher, opening up into the massive corridor. Lined up on either side of them were massive ominous statues, all of them of cloaked figures with bowed heads. It seemed like they were all looking down on Ben and Rey, dozens of eyes watching on as they descended further into this monolith’s seemingly never-ending skeleton of stone passageways.

It unnerved Ben a little that Rey seemed to have no qualms about where she was headed, she pressed on without hesitation.

The passageways had been growing increasingly darker as they went but after a while, Ben began to see some light ahead. Usually, he’d be relieved with such a thing but the worst was certainly still to come.

The walls around him opened out and the ceiling disappeared into nothing, the silent flashes of thunder explaining the sudden brightness of their surroundings. Ben would have thought it was all a little underwhelming had the overbearing and gaudy stone throne in the centre of the room not caught his attention immediately. As well as the robed man currently hunched in it.

While Ben stopped uneasily, Rey strode forward, furious determination furrowed in her brow and Ben had to eventually snap out of it and follow her or be left behind. As she approached the stone chair, the man occupying it gave a dark, throaty laugh. A laugh that churned Ben’s stomach and made his blood run cold.

“My darling, Rey,” he said, his words hoarse in his throat. “You’ve finally returned to me.”

“Hello, Grandfather.”

Rey spoke with no emotion in her voice, good or bad. Her greeting did not change her expression the slightest, no sentiment touching her features. Not how Ben would assume someone would greet a relative, although from context Ben was sure that Palpatine was not a relative you’d want to meet again.

“My, my, you’ve grown so strong. I felt your power when you savagely ripped my apprentice in two.”

“Your  _ apprentice _ got what was coming to him,” Rey hissed.

“Oh no, my dear. Please don’t misunderstand my sentiments, I’m proud of you. For the longest time, I thought you incapable of such darkness.”

“I can do what needs to be done when I’m properly motivated,” she told him. Her intention was clearly to threaten the old man, who on closer inspection, Ben could now see his eerie yellow eyes peering out at them and clawed hands wrapped over the armrests of his throne. He did not seem threatened though, in fact, his gaze seemed to move from Rey to Ben.

“I can see that,” he said slowly, his eyes scanning Ben up and down. “Who have you brought me here?”

“He’s none of your concern,” Rey snapped, stepping in front of Ben to shield him from her grandfather’s eyes even though he towered over her. Palpatine’s ominous chuckle made the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck stand on end.

“My dear Rey, he is clearly of great concern to you, therefore he’s certainly a great concern to me.”

“The only thing that should concern you is me,” she said darkly. “And if you speak about him again, I’ll give you something to be concerned about.”

He chuckled again.

“Where was this fire when  _ you _ were my apprentice? You would have made a wonderful dark witch.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“All these threats, surely you came all the way here to do more than that?” he taunted. “Kill me. You know you’ve always wanted to.”

Rey said nothing. The two of them watching each other silently, waiting to see which of them would strike first.

Rey threw her hand out, a wicked, sparking lightning bolt shooting from her fingertips. Palpatine batted it away as if it were nothing.

“There’s that fire!” he cackled. “You get that from me.”

“Don’t ever, compare me to you!” she screamed, each word punctuated with another whip of lightning, each one deflected and thrown to the side, cracking loudly off the stone walls. Unfazed, Palpatine waved an inviting hand, looking over Rey’s and Ben’s shoulders. They turned and watched as seven encroaching figures emerged from the darkness, weapons of all manners in their hands, ready to strike. Rey pulled Ben close to her, poised in a protective stance.

Rey held her hand out, yellow lightning coming forth again but this time forming a long blade, sparking and buzzing in her hand. Ben’s eyes widened as he looked down at her and she turned to face him.

“You’ve got magic Ben, use it.”

“How?”

“It comes from in here,” she says, placing her hand over his chest where his heart was surely thudding under her palm. “Feel it there, the energy, the power. Feel it and control it. Will it to your hand and outwards.”

Ben listened to her words, trying his very best to follow them as she spoke them. The electric feeling swelling inside, embracing it and pushing it outwards. Before he could stop himself, blue lightning shot from his hand, sparking out and striking one of Palpatine’s minions that slowly grew closer. Rey watched the guardian spin out and slam to the ground and she turned back to Ben with a grin.

“Yeah, just like that. Except grab it next time!” she yelled excitedly as she turned, the two of them now back to back as the circle of warriors closed in on them. Ben did the same again, willing the blue lightning to manifest itself in his hand and he gripped it tightly when it did. The thing vibrated his fist, the sensation shaking his bones. He was ready though, ready when the guardians finally attacked.

As the first of them struck, both Rey and Ben deflected their weapons with their light blades. They swung wildly, sending attacker after attacker flying backwards only for another one to swoop in and take their place. One returned, his weapon held high to strike down on Ben and he only just managed to stop it. In doing this, he missed the one approaching to his right, ready to run him through at the torso. Luckily for Ben, Rey’s own attackers floundered from her attacks and whilst they regrouped, she managed to turn and strike at Ben’s incoming attack. She turned back around, pulling her blade upwards to deflect oncoming blows and Ben downwards, drawing his blade through the armour of his attacker. He bumped into Rey, who only leaned into him, leveraging herself against his back to deal a brutal kick to one of the guardian’s stomachs. She grabbed his thigh as she held herself there, the two of them now moving as one. While Ben’s adrenaline rushed through him, Rey seemed to be enjoying herself.

When the guardians managed to separate the two of them and Ben realised that he was on his own now, Rey’s own guardians drew her further and further away from him, and he had to get aggressive. He caught the falling of an axe with the sword in his hand and shoved the guard backwards, using his other hand to punch another guard and he kicked another. All those bar fights were starting to come in handy.

Across the room, Rey swung wildly, deflecting hit after hit. She knocked one of her attackers to the ground only for the other guard to latch onto her blade with a whip and drag her towards him. She pulled back hard, willing her lightning to slice through the damn thing but it would not budge. Pulled up close to him, his large hand shot out and enclosed around her delicate neck and squeezing. She pushed her blade into his face and he pulled back, giving her enough space to pull free and duck around him, dragging the blade straight through him as she did. Now down to one opponent, Rey turned to him and he watched her, eyeing her up warily as he approached. He held out his weapon, a double-ended axe, and split the thing in half, one axe in each hand. Rey wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Ben had his own problems, having not disposed of one guard yet. Two of them came at him, their spears crossed to slice him in two. He stopped the blades from reaching him with his sword and thrust them away, the other guard swooped in to attack him and Ben ran him through and deposited him on the ground. One down. He held his blade up, the tip pointed at the two guards now circling him. He watched them carefully, waiting to catch the one who would move first. However, his attention was caught by a pained cry from Rey as her opponent sliced through her tanned skin with his axe blade. Ben’s eyes widened at the sight of her blood trickling down her arm. He didn’t know why but until now he had assumed that Rey was unharmable. Knowing that she wasn’t, made him all the more terrified of losing her today.

The remaining guards closed in on both Ben and Rey, Ben trying his hardest to utilise the powerful magic in his hand, striking and swooping at the guards, dealing blows here and there. Rey swung ferociously, quickly blocking each attempted strike from both axes coming at her. A guard swung at Ben and Ben managed to grab the guard’s spear out of his hand, using it to swing and beat the guard back. Ben caught him with his own weapon, pinning him down while he drove his blue blade through the guard’s body. Ben momentarily forgot the other guard was there until a sharp spear came swinging at him. Caught off guard, he jumped back, losing control of the lightning magic he’d been clinging to. Now weaponless, all he could do was dodge the brutal swings of a blade coming at him. The blade came down and Ben reached up to grab the spear, halting it in its path to strike him. The guardian moved behind Ben, twisting the spear around and pulling Ben behind it, the pressure of the weapon now firmly against Ben’s windpipe.

Rey lurched forward, her yellow lightning sword striking her last guard’s hand, causing one axe to clatter to the ground. He struck at her with the other one, Rey managing to stop it mere inches from her face. She strained against the assault, the man’s brute strength too much for her. But she didn’t need to be stronger than him, she just needed to be smarter. She pushed forward, putting her strength into the blade and when she was certain that her opponent was doing the same, she allowed her lightning bolt to disappear and she quickly dropped, almost to her knees, as the guard’s blade made contact with nothing but air. Before he could react, she ignited another lightning strike from her fingers and sent it straight through his body. He slumped to the ground immediately afterwards. Pleased and with a smile, she turned to Ben, whose cheeks were currently changing from pink to purple as oxygen drained from his lungs.

“Ben!” she screamed, his eyes flicking to her, wide and wild with panic. “Use your power!”

He groaned and choked as he gave up one hand protecting his throat to summon any power he had left in him. He mustered it and pushed it outwards, the blue lightning jolting from his hand and right through the head of the man killing him. When the pressure released from his throat, he gasped and dropped to his knees, his hand rubbing at the bruise forming across his neck.

Rey was at his side in an instant, her hands roaming over his face, his hair, his torso, checking for any signs of lasting damage. She wiped the dirt from his cheeks, her thumbs leaving small smudges on his pale skin and finally smiling softly at him when she had made certain that he was alright.

“Simply marvellous,” Palpatine’s grating voice came as he watched them gleefully. “You two together, you move as if you are one. I’ve only heard stories of such things.”

Rey’s expression darkened, her eyes turning to look at her grandfather perched on his throne.

“Stories of  _ what _ things?” she asked suspiciously.

“Of a Dyad, my dear.”

“A Dyad?” Ben asked.

“Yes, two magical beings that when brought together possess untold power. A power greater than my own, greater than your demon friend, even greater than unbreakable curses.”

Rey and Ben looked at each other. A Dyad? Ben had never heard of such a thing. Then again, Ben hadn’t heard of a lot of things until the last few months. However, if such a thing were to exist, it would explain how he was able to break free of his curse around Rey. How being with her had brought out the magic in him that he never knew he had possessed. How even Calcifer was unable to explain the magic going on here. It was legendary, unique, one-of-a-kind. He could see all the same thoughts flitting through her mind, her eyes wide as the realisation that such a mythical thing could, in fact, be true. Not only that, but it was also the two of them.

“Hmm,” Palpatine’s musing cut through their enlightening silence. “I wonder …”

He didn’t finish his thought. Instead, he raised his hands, lightning bolts flying from his fingers and striking both Rey and Ben directly in their hearts. Rey’s blood-curdling scream filled Ben’s ears and he strained to contain one himself. He felt the energy flowing through him be ripped from his body, every point of him in utter agony. And just as suddenly as it started, the pain stopped. Ben crumpled to the floor, Rey crumpling not far away from him.

A loud, maniacal laugh was all he heard next.

“Yes, yes! This is wonderful!” Palpatine cried. A hazy glow rippling over him, rejuvenating him, empowering him. “This power is intoxicating! And I can have it all!” He looked down at the Dyad, the two halves breathless, sprawled on the ground before him, his for the taking.

“Ben,” Rey’s voice croaked, her head tilted towards his. He gazed at her, her skin paling and her eyelids heavy and he reached out his hand to her and she took it. “I love you.”

When the blue lightning struck next, Ben didn’t even realise until it was too late. His body wasn’t in any pain at all, the only pain he felt was his heart breaking. Rey’s excruciating scream rang out against the stone walls, the torturous agony in her eyes, her magic being ripped from her very soul as she lay protectively over Ben, shielding him from her grandfather’s torment. Ben was certain that he felt his heart shatter when she fell limp in his arms.

“No. No, no, no, no!” Ben panicked, gathering Rey’s limp body up in his arms, shaking her, begging her to be alive. But she didn’t move.

“No!” Palpatine screamed. “It had to be the two of you! Rey alone is nothing! Nothing!”

Ben gritted his teeth, the unbridled fury welling up inside him as he looked up at the angry wizard.

“Rey isn’t nothing,” Ben spat. He gently laid her down and slowly rose to his feet, shaking but determined. “Not to me!”

Ben summoned it all. All the years of loneliness, of anger. All that he’d repressed. All the times his parents shut him away for losing his temper. All the times he’d had to hold himself back and take an undeserved beating for his father’s wrongdoings. Anger at his father, his mother, his life. The aching loneliness that he had lived with every single day since they had left him. The bitter unjustness that he should be cursed for falling in love. And now the horrid unfairness that he should have his love taken from him. He felt it all. Felt it push up through him, wrack his very soul and give him more power than he ever thought he was capable of. His heart was broken but it was still there and it gave him all the strength he needed to finish this once and for all.

Ben screamed, letting all those emotions fly out, discharging as bright white lightning. It struck Palpatine, who hadn’t thought to prepare himself against the overpowered attack. The lightning burned through the wizard, slicing through his flesh, eating up his bones, burning him from the inside out. Ben didn’t stop, he couldn’t. Not until he’d rid the world of this monster. For Rey.

Palpatine crumbled to the ground, his entire body burned alive and reduced to nothing more than ash that will blow away and be forgotten. Despite that, Ben felt no relief. He knelt by Rey, scooping her up into his arms and holding her tightly while his silent sobs dampened her cape. He combed his mind, trying to think of anything,  _ anything _ , that could bring Rey back to him. But he didn’t know how to save the life of someone without a heart.

Wait.

_ Without a heart! _

That was it! The stories always said that Rey sold her soul to a demon, he could get her soul back from Calcifer and bring her back.

“Calcifer! Calcifer!”

Ben screamed the demon’s name for what felt like an eternity and when Ben finally saw that twinkle glint in the sky above him. Calcifer swopped down, the sparkling star in the sky becoming a little ball of flame again in front of Ben just looked at him with a pained expression.

“Calcifer, quick! Give Rey her heart back!”

“I can’t do that Ben.”

“‘Course you can,” Ben snapped, trying to be as polite to the demon as possible all the while his brave resolve was starting to slip. “Just give it back and she’ll be alright.”

“Ben, I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t!” Ben yelled. Calcifer looked at him sadly.

“Can’t,” he said quietly. “I don’t have it anymore.”

“Then who does Calcifer?” Ben hissed.

“Rey does,” Calcifer told him. Ben looked astonished, wide eyes flitting between the demon and the lifeless girl in his arms.

“Why would she-? She gave up the power?” Calcifer nodded.

“She said she didn’t need it anymore,” Calcifer said. He smiled a bittersweet smile. “She had you and that was all the magic she needed.”

Ben crumbled, clutching Rey to him, letting the sobs fully take him now. He looked down at her, her cheeks damp from his tears and he brushed stray hairs back from her face.

“She really did love you, Ben, I hope you know that,” Calcifer tells him. Ben nods.

“I didn’t get to tell her that I loved her too,” Ben admitted quietly. “That my heart was hers.”

“I’m sure she knew Ben,” Calcifer said. Ben’s eyebrows furrowed, an absurd idea crossing his mind.

“My heart is hers,” he repeats. A smile breaks out across his face as he looks to Calcifer who for a demon looked as baffled as ever. “If we were to give Rey another heart, would that save her?”

“Uh, only if it possessed magic,” Calcifer told him. “But I don’t see you killing people for their hearts Ben.”

“Take mine.”

“What?!”

“Take mine, Calcifer!” Ben said again.

“No way, you’re mad!” the demon denied. “Besides, I said ‘magical’. God knows what  _ you _ are.”

“I’m a wizard Calcifer and I want to sell my soul to you on the condition that you give it directly to Rey.”

“Ben, I have no idea what this will do to you. What happened for Rey won’t be the same for you! I could take your heart and you might not even love her anymore!”

“I don’t care. What’s the point of loving her if she’s gone?”

“That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard,” the demon says.

“I never once said I wasn’t selfish,” Ben admits. “Do it Calcifer.”

“If you’re sure.”

He grinned at him, the most honest, deep and heartfelt smile he had felt cross his features in the longest time. He nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life Calcifer.”

“Okay … open wide.”

Ben tilts his head back, his mouth open and the fiery demon leaps inside him. Ben can feel him inside, the tingling heat in his chest. It was only a moment later when Calcifer burst back out, Ben’s heart in his grasp.

“Would you like to do the honours or shall I?” Calcifer asks.

“I’ll do it.”

Ben takes his heart, seeming so small in his hand and for a brief second, he wondered how such a small, delicate thing could hold so much love for one woman. But the moment passed as quickly as it came and Ben pressed it into Rey’s chest. It disappeared into her and Ben waited with bated breath, hand over her chest, waiting for it to beat for him.

When nothing happened, his head dropped in defeat, the tears threatening to sting his eyes again. Until a small hand moved to lay on top of his. He opened his eyes, watching Rey wake up bewildered and she looked at him wide-eyed.

“Ben?” she asked confused, her hand reaching out to lightly touch his face. He let a smile wash over his features, Rey’s eyes roaming his face.

And then, she kissed him. A kiss of love, friendship, compassion and kinship. Ben held her tighter than he’d ever held anything in his life and he swore to himself that he’d never let her go again. She pulled back, a huge smile spread across her face and Ben indulged himself in a relieved laugh.

Rey’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Ben? What did you do?” she asked suspiciously. He just smiled.

“I love you too.”

That was all he said before kissing her again.


	5. Epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I had such a blast writing this and I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> FYI.  
> My other idea was to have Rey as Sophie and Ben as Turniphead; the cursed Prince, caught up in the middle of a war ...
> 
> Let me know if you fancy that cause I'd love to write it!
> 
> Thank you! xxx

The meadow was green, the greenest thing Ben could recall ever seeing. His fingertips brushed through the long strands of grass and over the heads of blooming flowers, the scent of them being whipped up into his nose by the warm breeze. The cottage over the open meadow stood out, white walls and thatched roof contrasting against the plush greenery and tumultuous river that flowed behind it. The pale smoke billowing from the chimney stack and the cottage’s water wheel that turned with the power of the river were the only things that broke the peaceful stillness that his surroundings encompassed.

“Ben!”

His heart fluttered at the sound of his name.

He turned, pushing his hair back from his face and squinting into the light. The brightness of the setting sun could not have blinded him to the beauty of his wife. The orange light caught in the shining bronze of her hair as she stepped into his arms for an embrace. Ben’s arms closed tightly around her, the familiar curve of her slightly swollen stomach pressing into his torso.

She pulled back, her hazel eyes looking up at him and her lips pulled into a wide smile.

“I love you,” she whispered, leaning up against him on her toes to press the sweetest kiss against his lips.

“I love you too Rey,” he responded with his own declaration of love. A love that he could not deny, the overwhelming feeling of it thrumming in his chest for the woman in his arms. For the two of them.

“I know,” she said, smiling up at him, laying a hand over his empty chest. “Let’s go home.”

Ben nodded, wrapping her dainty fingers in his hand and the two of them pushed through the field of wildflowers to their little cottage, perched on the river edge, waiting for them. Ben had visited this place often in his sleep, it’s dreamlike quality a perfect retreat. Despite that, he knew this was no dream. It was real, he and Rey had made it so. A haven that’d they’d both always dreamed of and they removed the portal to Exegol in favour of it. There was nothing left for them back there now, just rock, dust and wasted time.

Instead, they had this. This perfect place for just the two of them - well, the three of them soon.

The sun dipped below the horizon, the air growing cooler in their secluded valley. They came home to a warm cottage though, with a familiar little ball of flames crackling in the fireplace.

“Where have you two been?” Calcifer called as they came through the door. “I’m starving!”

“Y’know when this little lady arrives there’s only going to be room for one baby in this cottage?” Ben quipped.

“Little lady? Little guy, I think you mean,” Rey added. Ben shook his head.

“Rey, I told you, it’s a girl. I’m certain of it. I felt it!”

“You’ve been doing magic for all of three seconds Ben Solo! As a professional, I’m telling  _ you _ , it’s a boy.”

Ben opened his mouth to protest again but Calcifer bet him to it.

“You two should really be thanking me.”

Ben furrowed his brow at him.

“How so?”

“Just preparing you for having more than one baby in this cottage…”

Rey and Ben looked to each other, their eyes wide with surprise and excitement. So many evenings under their thatched roof had been spent bickering over the subject; boy or girl? Both of them were so sure in their magical capabilities that they were certain they were correct. They never thought that they both could be. They chuckled lightly together, realising that out of the three of them, Calcifer would be the one powerful enough to really settle their argument. It seemed that he had.

“Also, if we’re talking names, Calcifer is a wonderful name. Strong, powerful,” the demon suggested. Rey laughed aloud, the sound wholesome music to Ben’s ears.

Calcifer’s warning that giving up his heart could mean losing the ability to love altogether, seemed so ridiculous now. In the beginning, though, the fact that his heartbeat soundly in Rey’s chest and he still had so much love for her and now the little surprises in her belly had truly surprised him. Calcifer had been wrong. Giving up his heart to Rey didn’t mean he could no longer love, if anything, it meant that he loved her more powerfully and passionately like no one had ever loved another person before.

Although, Rey had always told him that this would be the case because she said she loved him from day one.

**Author's Note:**

> come and say hi on twitter!  
> I'm @someonesbh


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